Hard Drive Failure During Confidence Test

Question

I bought my Inspiron 2650 about 6 years ago in 2001. It had a 20gb drive originally. About a year ago, the hard drive died (due to a main fan breaking down, so now the computer overheats regularly, but doesn't shut down because of this). I replaced the drive this past November with a brand new Western Digital 120gb drive. Other issues I suspected were hardware problems continued, but this drive worked perfectly until the end of April/beginning of May, when I ran the diagnostics on the original Dell Driver CD. This included a series of confidence tests. Over the course of more than 48 hours, three failed, and after little change on the screen since approximately hour 20, I decided to restart. To do so, I touched the power button. Normally it must be held for several seconds to restart: this time I had hardly touched it and it shut down. I waited about a minute and powered up again. It began to start up, but beeped loudly twice and stopped because it could not find the hard drive. The BIOS does not recognize it. I formatted another drive, installed Windows XP (which is on the new 120gb drive), and hooked the 120gb drive through USB and an external drive adapter to the computer. The adapter is recognized as being for a USB mass storage device, but it cannot find the drive. I recently brought it to a computer support center at my university, and they confirmed that it isn't being recognized by either a Mac or a PC. They recommended the freezer trick, but only as a last resort, since the drive can then only be used once, and might still not work. I don't have specifics on the errors, since the scan wouldn't even finish.   I NEED my files, which are from the past 6 years. They are only on this drive, because I was reformatting another drive on which to back them up at the time the drive failed. I was told there are places that can recover information from drives such as mine, but I cannot afford the $2000 it would cost. Is there a way I can recover the files myself, or someone who can do it much less expensively?   I understand that a replacement non-Dell drive can cause a false fail result, but there seems to be no reason it would kill the drive. It was working perfectly even second before I started the diagnostic, and surprisingly enough, nothing before the confidence test failed. What might have happened? How can I fix it?

ejn63 · Answer

To begin with:

You've been running a drive in a system with a faulty fan, that you KNOW is overheating? That's likely what killed the drive.

Since the drive is not recognizable to another system, you really have two options:

Pay a pro to recover it properly (which will cost in the neighborhood of what you posted), or

Write off the data.

ejn63 · Answer

Data recovery services use a combination of proprietary software techniques and often have to rebuild drives (remove the platters and install them in new units, using a clean room).

Again, if you cannot get the drive recognized at all, your chances of recovery without the assistance of a pro are just about nil.

It may not have been overheating, but it sounds like whatever caused the problem, the drive is dead. If you want the data back, you can attempt recovery yourself (you might give Ontrack's Easy Recovery a try; it's free to try and only a couple of hundred dollars to buy, if you find data you can read).

If you cannot read the data, it's either pay a pro, or lose the data.

neverwiththeflo · Answer

I have been running the computer with a portable fan blowing on it, so it has not overheated at all since I installed the new drive. It no longer reaches 'warm' temperatures. This drive also worked perfectly until during the confidence test, wherein it ceased all function rather suddenly. This doesn't indicate to me an error due to overheating.   How might a professional recover my information? Would they use a program (which?), or does it require a certain device (what?)?   It would also be useful to know what the confidence test tests: what does it check and how?   I appreciate the suggestions, but neither of those are viable options as I can barely afford the cost of living, and most of my files could never be replaced or duplicated. If I had just waited another hour for the tests, everything would be backed up, but I made a mistake.

Storage, Drives & Media

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