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Old 15th September 2017, 14:56   #256
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re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

One of families hard disk was not recognised so tried 1-2 location for recovery but they said not recognised so I paid inspection charges of 700 and gave Stellar for recovery. They gave a ghastly ~35K+GST estimation. I refused and asked them to return the disk. Surprisingly they asked what is your budget for which i scolded their business practice of quoting based on work not on customers budget and asked them to return.
A lesson learnt about the vulture culture on others agony
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Old 15th September 2017, 15:33   #257
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re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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Originally Posted by bullock-Car View Post
One of families hard disk was not recognised so tried 1-2 location for recovery but they said not recognised so I paid inspection charges of 700 and gave Stellar for recovery. They gave a ghastly ~35K+GST estimation. I refused and asked them to return the disk. Surprisingly they asked what is your budget for which i scolded their business practice of quoting based on work not on customers budget and asked them to return.
A lesson learnt about the vulture culture on others agony
Been there, done that and also had to say no thanks. But I'm afraid that I disagree with you: If they have to disassemble your disk and possibly access the contents even though its own read heads may be dead, then they do need facilities and skills that require a large investment. Although we were both shocked at the price quoted, on reflection, I find it more acceptable.

I wonder, though... if they asked your budget, ie what can you afford, they might have been prepared to do something at low cost for a suffering individual rather than charge the rate normal for their mostly-commercial customers. Just a thought.
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Old 4th November 2017, 11:16   #258
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Recover Data from Broken and Damaged Sandisk Cruzer Switch Pen Drive.

Mods, Sorry for creating New Topic on USB Drive. Please merge with existing suitable one.

I have a Sandisk Cruzer Switch 16GB USB Pen Drive. The Drive has important data on it. But I was lazy to take backup of the same on other drive.
And the unfortunate incident happened. The Drive suddenly stopped working.
It used to show Unknown Device in Device Manager. I checked on different OS (Win XP Professional) on Office Desktop PC other than my Home Laptop running Win 7 Professional (the Sandisk stopped working while it was connected to Laptop.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the Drivers on Laptop. Even tried formatting the Laptop but in vain.

Later my BIL found that the Drive's Connecting Terminals (the four lines inside the USB Port) have got damaged due to thousands of removing and reinserting the Drive in PCs till date.

My BIL tried to re-solder the Wires on his own. Big Mistake. One of the Data Terminal had thin Copper Plate and as destiny has its own will, while re-soldering, the Terminal melted.

Fellow Bhpians, please guide on how to recover the data in this case.
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Old 4th November 2017, 18:59   #259
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Re: Recover Data from Broken and Damaged Sandisk Cruzer Switch Pen Drive.

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Originally Posted by IndigoXLGrandDi View Post
My BIL tried to re-solder the Wires on his own. Big Mistake. One of the Data Terminal had thin Copper Plate and as destiny has its own will, while re-soldering, the Terminal melted.
I think the USB drive had already failed ('unknown device' in Device Manager can point to a hardware fault) & the re-soldering process only served to physically damage it further.

What you can do is take it to a electronic tech, who are generally skilled at soldering small semi-conductors and check if you could solder a USB male wire lead to the circuit board and then plug that into a USB port on your PC. This may help you recover your data assuming the memory chip and controller are functional.

The USB pin out schematic is here: Schematic

Obviously the biggest lesson you've learned is to backup your data regularly. Never trust a storage device to retain data or function indefinitely. They all fail some day. And the solder-at-home experiment also voids any device warranty, lifetime or otherwise.

Last edited by R2D2 : 4th November 2017 at 19:04.
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Old 4th November 2017, 19:10   #260
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Re: Recover Data from Broken and Damaged Sandisk Cruzer Switch Pen Drive.

Depends on where the damage is. Check this video. If this is what your problem is, it is fixable even at home. Just needs the same soldering skill.

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Old 6th November 2017, 10:59   #261
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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Originally Posted by IndigoXLGrandDi View Post
I have a Sandisk Cruzer Switch 16GB USB Pen Drive. The Drive has important data on it.
For future reference = the new Google Drive (called Backup & Sync) can also backup data from USB drives into the cloud. Use it.
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Old 8th May 2019, 12:43   #262
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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NEED HELP! (For Real)
I deleted a partition on the HDD which had important files. The files to be recovered total up to 20 GB approx. How do I recover them? Suggest some software please.
My HDD hasn't crashed. I foolishly deleted the partition on which I had my data. It shows as un-allocated space in Disk Management. Please help.
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Old 8th May 2019, 12:55   #263
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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My HDD hasn't crashed. I foolishly deleted the partition on which I had my data. It shows as un-allocated space in Disk Management. Please help.
You need a disaster recovery software to reconstruct the partition table. Look around. Or give it to a recovery expert, instead of doing DIY.

I used to do disk recoveries as part of my first software job in 91-92. Even wrote a software to do it, since no ready product was available. I didn't keep up with the changing technology though. I can't do it anymore.

Last edited by Samurai : 8th May 2019 at 12:57.
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Old 8th May 2019, 13:19   #264
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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My HDD hasn't crashed. I foolishly deleted the partition on which I had my data. It shows as un-allocated space in Disk Management. Please help.
Did you try these?

How to restore partition

Partition Recovery
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Old 8th May 2019, 14:34   #265
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

The easiest thing is to restore from a backup. You have a backup, right? If not, then I'm sure you will in the future: it's a tough lesson to learn the hard way.

If no backup, and the data is valuable to you, please try to get an expert on the job. It may save you from grey hair!

If you must DIY without previous experience, please check out recommended softwares, but do not dive in. Read the documentation thoroughly and know what you are going to do. Explore your disk read-only at first. The moment you let anything write to that partition you probably have no second chance.

Good luck!
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Old 8th May 2019, 14:58   #266
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Not sure if its the right thread but i need some help. I forgot the password to my WD hard disk. It used to open by default in my old laptop but it asks for a password in every other system which i don't know!
The WD drive unlocker has no option other than erasing the disk and then setting up password. Please advice!
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Old 8th May 2019, 18:07   #267
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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Originally Posted by abhi7013 View Post
Not sure if its the right thread but i need some help. I forgot the password to my WD hard disk. It used to open by default in my old laptop but it asks for a password in every other system which i don't know! The WD drive unlocker has no option other than erasing the disk and then setting up password. Please advice!
If you have the old laptop, plug the drive back in and attempt to copy the data to another USB hard drive.

What did you set up the password in? Was it in a WD application or did you encrypt the drive? If encrypted there's almost no way to recover your data unless you choose expensive data recovery companies who MAY be able to decrypt the data and even that is doubtful.
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Old 9th May 2019, 10:26   #268
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
You need a disaster recovery software to reconstruct the partition table.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 5hadow View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom View Post
Explore your disk read-only at first. The moment you let anything write to that partition you probably have no second chance.
Good luck!
Thanks everyone. Files have been restored last night.

In the end I ended up speaking to my brother about the most essential files he needed to be recovered. They were within 1 GB limit of the demo version of EaseUS. Someone suggested you can recover in multiple steps of 1 GB with the demo version. Will try this later.

Tried recuva as well (usually bundled with CCleaner. had to quick format the unallocated disk for the software to detect it. Did a deep scan. Sorted by file size and Photos/Documents/Videos/Music (in built sort feature in the software. Ran the recovery for each file type and have recovered the files as a trial basis. This software doesn't have any recovery size limitation but the folder structure is not convincingly restored. This is more like a RAW recovery based on file extensions.
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Old 9th May 2019, 16:49   #269
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

Phew, glad you got your files.

Backups save lives!
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Old 17th May 2019, 16:58   #270
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Re: Crashed Hard Disk - Data Recovery?

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Originally Posted by R2D2 View Post
If you have the old laptop, plug the drive back in and attempt to copy the data to another USB hard drive.

What did you set up the password in? Was it in a WD application or did you encrypt the drive? If encrypted there's almost no way to recover your data unless you choose expensive data recovery companies who MAY be able to decrypt the data and even that is doubtful.
The password was set on the WD application itself. And the old laptop isn't easily accessible to me rite now to copy the files. Hence wondering if there's any other way!
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