Recovering data from a burnt out hard drive

[HawkBoy 0]

Is there a way to recover data from a hard drive burnt out (trust me, it is BURNT OUT) due to a power surge in the power supply without spending $800?

I know that the chips on the HD are fried. I've checked with a few companies and they say that it will cost about 800 USD. I have also heard people say that they have had the same problem but have recovered data for about $50.

From what I understand, the magnetic disks in my HD are fine and just have to be placed in another hard drive with the same number of cylinders, . . .. I also know that the companies I talked to do that in air tight rooms with special equipment, . . ..

Considering the fact that my HD is a rather popular model (Maxtor 30GB, 7200 rpm), aren't there any people that could simply stick my magnetic disks in another maxtor HD?

Anyone had this done? can anyone save my data AND my wallet?

 

thanks in advance

[adamvjackson 0]

Well, depending on how daring you are, if you have or can find the EXACT same drive, you can try swapping the PC boards, but you may damage or destroy both drives in the process.

 

[Edit]

And if you open the case of a HDD, you'll likely lose any chance of recovering data, the dust/air will destroy it.

[/Edit]

[BladeRunner 0]

As the previous post said, you could try swapping the power boards over.

However it all depends on just how valuable the data on this drive is.

Because if attempting to swap the power boards over fails there is a good chance you'll do even more damage to the unit.

 

There is a very good reason why companies charge so much to recover data in this situation.

The platters are physically removed from the drive and placed into basically a new HD shell.

This is certainly not something that should be attempted in ones bedroom - a very clean room is the only way this can be done, hence the charge.

 

If you feel the data is expendable then go for it, give it a shot and you may be lucky, saving $800 to boot.

However if it doesn't go according to plan then not even spending $800 is going to get your data back.

[Tomay 0]

Let me share my experience. I repair a lot of computers and also have a lot of burned hardware lying around. A few weeks ago I got a lightning struck pc . Everything was burned except the sound card. (Even the floppy and the cdrom). Looking at the hdd that didn't even spin up I remembered I had once had one just like this, and I did. I replaced the power boards and it worked. Lucky me If you can get a simmilar hdd you should give it a try. Good luck

[fishel 0]

Wow. I was looking for other people that had this problem. My power supply started smoking...

So - a new power supply and MB latter I have determined that my hard drives are burnt out.

Is this common? I work in in the computer field but never ran into this in the corperate environment.

THX