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Recover Data from a Failed Hard Drive

by George Wells

Nothing Lasts Forever

One day while shopping for a new hard drive at a big-box electronics store, I overheard a conversation between a young salesman and a shopper who was probably in his 50's, around my age.  The salesman was boastfully proclaiming that the "new hard drives last forever".  He said this as though he had designed and manufactured them himself.  I wasn't part of the conversation and I wasn't eavesdropping but I was looking at the same hard drives.  The shopper and I looked at each other as though we both instantly had the same thought.  The other fellow turned my way and said "forever is an awfully long time".  I couldn't help but grin and I replied "Indeed it is - ah, the hubris of the young".  If there is one thing that we learn with age it is that nothing last forever.

Having a hard drive fail can be one of the most stressful things that can happen to you as a PC user. When it happens - and it will happen - your first inclination will be to beat yourself up because you haven't backed up your data since ... well, you can't remember when.

SMART Drives

Most modern hard drives employ a technology called "SMART" (self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology) which is an early warning system that can alert you to an impending failure.  I know from personal experience though that SMART does not always work.  As a matter of fact, I had had many hard drives with SMART fail without warning.  If you do get an impending failure warning, act on it quickly.  The first thing to do is to shut down your PC to allow everything to cool.  After the system has cooled, boot it up again and immediately begin backing up your data.

What if you are working and you hear a strange noise coming from the hard drive?  Take that as a warning.  Back-up everything.  But what if you never got a warning of any kind and your hard drive failed?  Here again, the first thing to is to shut down the PC.

The Damage Curve

There is hope but, you have to act fast.  Most electronic components and appliances fail because of heat.  You will sometimes hear experts say that the main cause of failure of electronic devices is dust.  The failure is actually caused by overheating.  Dust act as a thermal insulator allowing heat to rise to harmful temperatures.

Many components in a PC generate heat.  Hard drives, in particular, generate heat.  The heat needs to be continuously removed.  Perhaps you have heard the term "Damage curve".  Electrical and electronic components and appliances and electro-mechanical devices do not usually fail instantaneously.  The failure occurs over time.  The time may be very short or it may be a relatively long time depending on the temperature.  The term Damage Curve refers to the relationship of time and temperature in the temperature range where damage is being done.

Cooler Heads Prevail

A favorite tool of electricians, industrial controls technicians, and electronics technicians is carbon dioxide fire extinguishers.  I have often made use of fire extinguishers, liquid nitrogen and liquid helium to keep a piece of equipment alive until permanent repairs could be made.

One day while working at home on my PC, it locked-up.  It would not reboot.  Instead it gave me the dreaded "HD Failed to Initialize" message.  I took the cover off the PC and listened to the hard drive as I made another attempt to reboot the PC.  The hard drive made some unpleasant noises for a few seconds and once again the PC announced "HD Failed to Initialize".  I did what we electricians and electronic techs tend to do in such instances - I smelled it and I touched it.  It smelled OK.  That was a good thing.  It was so hot though that I couldn't touch it for more than a few seconds.

At this point, it may appear that all is lost.  Well, maybe.  But then again, maybe not.  Once a hard drive fails, it may not work even at room temperatures.  However, there is a chance that a failed hard drive may work at freezing or near freezing temperatures.

I didn't have a fire extinguisher handy.  We also don't usually keep liquid nitrogen or liquid helium around the house.  We do, however, have a freezer!  I removed the hard drive from the PC and put it into a plastic sandwich bag.  Many hard drive have a circuit board exposed on the bottom.  The sandwich bag serves as a vapor barrier to protect the drive from moisture (I would use a plastic bag even on a totally enclosed drive).

Most (perhaps all?) hard drives use an aluminum case because aluminum is a good heat sink.  after ten minutes in the freezer, the aluminum will be so cold that you will not be able to hold it on your hand for long.

I took my drive and plugged it back in but left it outside the enclosure.  Sure enough, the PC booted up.  I knew that I was on borrowed time so I had to act fast.  I again shut down the PC to prevent the drive from getting too hot.

The Recovery

At this point, you would have several options.  If drive that has failed is your PCs boot drive and you have another PC, the best course is to use the other PC to help recover the data.  Some aluminum external hard drive enclosures have moderately good heat-sinking capabilities.  But you need excellent, not moderate, heat-sinking.  If you have access to an external USB2 or Firewire hard drive enclosure, remove the connectors from the enclosure.  They usually pop right out and can be put back when you are finished.  Don't use a USB1 external enclosure.  The data transfer will be much slower and time is of the essence.  Firewire is the best option because it is faster (yes, I know that's not what the specs say but that is a whole story in itself).

The jumper on the back of the hard drive should already be on either "Master" or "CS" (Cable Select).  If you are using the electronics and connectors from an external enclosure, leave the jumper on Master.

If you are going to connect the drive as an internal drive to another PC, move the jumper to "Slave".  This is VERY important!  I have done this many times both ways.  They both work equally well but using the guts of an external hard drive enclosure is much easier.

A big advantage to using the guts of an external drive is that you can connect it to either a USB or a Firewire port while the host PC is on.  If you use the internal connections, you will need to boot the host PC after you connect the sick hard drive.  That would cost you valuable time!

Have the host PC up and running but make sure you turn off any unnecessary stuff running in the background.  If you are like most PC users, you probably don't believe there is anything running without your knowledge.  Humor me on this one.  Run Windows Defender or Task Manager and turn off as much as you can.

If you have an aluminum sauce pan, fill it with ice.  Dry ice would be the better choice if you have access to dry ice.  Now, take your sick hard drive from your freezer and attach the external drive electronics.  It is important that you do this FIRST - BEFORE you plug it into your USB or Firewire port.  Place a piece of plastic wrap over the hard drive and put the aluminum pan filled with ice on top of the sick hard drive.  Plug the external drive connector into your PC.

You may be tempted to hold your breath while waiting for the sick drive to come to live.  don't do it.   You are already under enough stress and you need the oxygen!!

There are no guarantees but there is a very good chance that you will be able to get the drive to work for a while.  I don't recommend attempting to do a full back-up of the drive.  Go for the data in order of importance.  you may be able to keep the drive alive for hours or it may only survive for a few minutes.  Even if it crashes, don't give up hope. 

Your heat sinks are not perfect.  They cannot carry away all the heat from inside the drive.  Allow the drive to rest after every few gigabytes or so.  You need to give the internal heat time to dissipate.  Put the drive back in your freezer for ten minutes or so then resume the recovery process.  With a little patience and a little luck, you may be able to recover all your data.

What's Next

If you are not successful at recovering your data, there are services that can recover data from almost any hard drive.  The data is going to have to be worth a lot to you though.  Using a service to recover the data can easily run into thousands of dollars.  Most of us would probably have to bit the bullet and move on - having learned a valuable lesson.

Don't throw the old hard drive in the trash f it contains any sensitive data.  Some enterprising young dumpster diver could recover your drive from the trash and your data from the drive.

That dead hard drive may still have some value to you.  I have at least four or five dead hard drive that I keep to aid with future recovery efforts.  Instead of using aluminum sauce pans, I use the old hard drives.  I freeze at least two or three of them and swap them out every few minutes during the recovery.  Short of having liquid nitrogen or liquid helium available, old hard drives seem to work best.

By the way, if you have access to liquid oxygen or liquid hydrogen, don't use them.  You could experience undesired results!

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