Need Computer Data Recovery Help

T

Tony Zinzola

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I returned from NY after Christmas and my CNC computer would not boot up. It was an old computer and it was probably time for it to die. Somebody gave me an older computer and I got that up and running without any problems.

I went to connect to my server, where all my data is stored for my cue work and my real estate company. I couldn't find the drive. I logged onto the server and no drive was found. There were 2 mirrored hard drives. The Bios will sort of see them if I disable the raid, but it's not showing what it should be and only showing 8GB of space.

I am not computer illiterate and have tried everything possible short of disassembling the drive. I called a Data Recovery place and it sounds like it is going to cost somewhere near $2K to recover the data. If I had the cash sitting around, I would pay it. I need the data.

Every inlay I have ever done is on these drives. I can redraw anything, but I have cues in progress. I am screwed on those if I have to recreate ringwork or inlays that are already partially in a cue. The recreations will likely not be exact copies of what's currently there.

I figured I was safe with a mirror. I've never lost anything before. I guess I know better now.

Anyway, are there any data recovery experts out there there that can help me. I hate to ship my drive out to somebody I don't know, but I'm almost out of options. I'm waiting on a call from a friend who says he can help me, but I'm not sure.

I'm hoping we can work something out in trade.

Thanks

PM me or email me if you can help. My email is my first name @ my last name.
 
I can help you out. I know I don't know you personally, but I know of you and would gladly help. I've do IT work for a living and have had to deal with this stuff for 2 decades. If you want to send it to me I can see what I can do. If you'd feel safer with some references, you can ask Steve Jennings (pooltchr) or Blackjack if I'm trustworthy :)

Brian
 
Can you hook up the hard drive to an external HD case & just connect it to your USB port. If you can the data should be on there.
 
Also, I dropped a note in email to you, I assume it got to you :) Stuck my phone number in it if you want to drop me a line (If i don't answer, just leave a VM, i sometimes hide from my phone). I can also help you with a decent backup strategy as well so you don't have to worry about this in the future (you can do it simply and cheaply now a days).

Brian
 
btoneill said:
Also, I dropped a note in email to you, I assume it got to you :) Stuck my phone number in it if you want to drop me a line (If i don't answer, just leave a VM, i sometimes hide from my phone). I can also help you with a decent backup strategy as well so you don't have to worry about this in the future (you can do it simply and cheaply now a days).

Brian
Click to expand...

Replied to your email. Already got a backup solution implemented too. I was going to try carbonite, but it won't work for all of my uses. I found a solution to eliminate my real estate company server all together.

Thanks
 
man that sucks tony.....i hope everything gets taken care of without a ton of cash being involved....
 
tattoo said:
man that sucks tony.....i hope everything gets taken care of without a ton cash being involved....
Click to expand...

Worst case is I have to redraw everything. The newer drawings will probably be better than before, but rings won't be the exact same size. A few thousandths difference and they won't be right if going into a cue already partially done.
 
Tony, I live in MA not far from your shop, send me a PM with address and a good time for you (weekend will be best) and I'll find some time to come by. I don't have a full drive recovery shop but at least we can look over and see what this looks like. FYI, a drive recovery for failed hardware is about 1k and up if that is what needed. I have some good software to do restores if the drives are usable.
 
hmmm...making noise is not a good thing, esp if it is on both drives. usually that is a sign of something mechanically wrong with the drive (like a head crash) and the only hope of recovery there is to send it off to a data recovery house as only they would be able to open the drives and get access to the drive platters to get at whatever data is still readable.

pretty unlucky to have both crash at the same time, possibly some other factor caused both to die simultaneously (power surge, overheating). i'm sure you know this now, but RAID is no substitute for a real backup!
 
Tony,

If the computer can see the drive and you are using XP or older try this freeware program "PC Inspector File Recovery"

http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm

I know the site is in german but I recovered about 95% of my data recently after a nearly identical problem to what you have described using this software. Took forever but it worked.

I hope everything works out for you.
 
There are several tricks you can try for a drive that is dying of old age and whose read-write head is not responsive/sticking. These are your 2nd-to-last resort (the last resort being the 2000 dollar guys).

1. Stick it in a ziploc bag, then in the freezer for 20 minutes. Try it fresh out of the freezer.
2. If that doesn't work, let it get back near room temp (no shortcuts here, just wait a couple of hours) and try running it upside down or on its end.
3. If that still doesn't work, once it's fully warmed back up, give it a whack. Very low tech but it can work. Obviously the question is "how hard". A gentle rap is the best I can describe it. Like knocking once on a door. Or hold it flat a few inches above a table and just drop it.

Good luck. You can probably get it recovered from a professional for closer to 1000, and if you really shop around you can get it even lower. But be very wary of anyone charging less than 500.
 
I think I would physically remove the drives from that server asap. Then I would try one of the recovery programs on one of the drives while connected to another computer. It would be interesting to see if the drive would then function properly and I don't think you would be further risking the data as you are by leaving them running in that server (if I'm understanding the situation correctly).
 
CreeDo said:
There are several tricks you can try for a drive that is dying of old age and whose read-write head is not responsive/sticking. These are your 2nd-to-last resort (the last resort being the 2000 dollar guys).

1. Stick it in a ziploc bag, then in the freezer for 20 minutes. Try it fresh out of the freezer.
2. If that doesn't work, let it get back near room temp (no shortcuts here, just wait a couple of hours) and try running it upside down or on its end.
3. If that still doesn't work, once it's fully warmed back up, give it a whack. Very low tech but it can work. Obviously the question is "how hard". A gentle rap is the best I can describe it. Like knocking once on a door. Or hold it flat a few inches above a table and just drop it.

Good luck. You can probably get it recovered from a professional for closer to 1000, and if you really shop around you can get it even lower. But be very wary of anyone charging less than 500.
Click to expand...

Tried them all. Nothing worked...
 
ChampionsRepair said:
Tony,

If the computer can see the drive and you are using XP or older try this freeware program "PC Inspector File Recovery"

http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm

I know the site is in german but I recovered about 95% of my data recently after a nearly identical problem to what you have described using this software. Took forever but it worked.

I hope everything works out for you.
Click to expand...

It's on a 2008 Sever. Tried a few different programs. Have one more to try later, but not optimistic. I'll check this one out though.

THanks
 
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