Reviving A Dead Hard Drive The Hard Way 415
An anonymous reader writes "This guy went to the trouble of swapping logic boards on a dead hard drive to get his NeverWinter Nights save games back and took photos." I would have just used a character editor to get my stuff back, but clearly, I lack the dedication this gentleman has. Regardless of reason, nice work!
Backing up is like voting (Score:2, Insightful)
Appropriate Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Blessed are the pessemists, for they have made backups.
Re:Hardware discrepencies (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously anyone with any sense would rather buy the Quaddro997XTurbo-XP drive which was made last week than the one made in June. Why? 'Cause the newer one might have some slight improvements somewhere. Might not have, but just in case, you get the newer one.
This is how it is with motherboards, routers, CD burners etc. so I don't see why it's a problem with hard drives. better than having to wait a whole product generation for even the smallest improvement.
btw, can you flash the firmware on hard drives?
2 rules of backup (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule 2. If you changed data, see rule 1.
But, what people forget is to test their backup to see if it can be restored from.
Re:Backing up is like voting (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if someone can miraculously get me interested of politics I could make backups more often...
(End of a Predictable Joke. Please return to your normal daily posting.)
The Coolest Thing (Score:2, Insightful)
But what's even cooler is that the guy went and got his own domain for his dead hard drive. Nice.
Improvements to you or to the company? (Score:5, Insightful)
It can also be designed to make the product cheaper to produce, even if there is some kind of trade off.
At the end of the day, some executive is going to look at a suggested change and think: "will this help us make more money?"
So the latest version is always the best for the company, but is it the best for you? You can't be sure of that.
deadharddrive.com (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have thought that name would have been snapped up by a data recovery service years ago!
Re:Don't buy Seagate and IBM (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy's logic board was fried. It was not a mechanical failure like most HD failures are. He could have gotten a power surge and fried the electronics.
BTW, this is the easy way of reviving a HD, not "The Hard Way". Boards are designed to be easily replaced in most HD's. Now, if he had opened the other side. It would have been a total loss, unless he was in a clean room free of any dust or debris in the air.
Re:Obviously... (Score:1, Insightful)
Look at the comparison guide.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ho
Really most people don't even bother with the stuff listed. And the few things you might need you can get aftermarket. Plus Home probably came with his computer.(not eveyone bulds there own)
Sorry but I'm just not a big fan of making fun people because of the OS they run. Now if he said "linus suckz and MS is God" they you'd be in the right, but alas he didn't and you just look stupid.
Re:been there, done that. (Score:2, Insightful)
I can understand the average geek not knowing how to do board level repairs, though again, my friends and I taught ourselves to do that too at a young age.
Simple subsystem replacement should be something that anyone of average intelligence can do. I am concerned that as I see more of this sort of attitude, "Wow. He swapped a board out on his HDD. That's really cleaver.", it signals the decline of curiosity and experiment. And the rise of Asimov's "calculator people." (They can't do simple mathmatics without a caculating device of some sort.)
The mind, like the body, can be developed and improved, with enough work. But also, like the body, it will atrophy if not exercised.
Backup is like voting.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm supposed to be impressed? (Score:2, Insightful)
I did it, it worked, but I never expected to see a headline about someone doing it.
Contradiction in article... (Score:3, Insightful)
I look at some businesses that do hard drive recovery - the prices are exhorbitant! I could buy 2 replacement drives for those prices.
then...
So I go get a replacement hard drive
So I ring around some places and besides having to deal with some hopelessly non-tech sales people I actually find a shop that goes to the effort of looking on the drive for me and it's the right firmware! Cool! I go and buy this one.
So he doesn't want to have the data recovered cuz it costs the same as 2 new drives...
but he buys 2 new drives to recover this hard drive?
Re:Lame (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Appropriate Quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Your method is OK to protect yourself if a drive fails, but don't rely on it as your only backup method - backing up to removable media or another machine across the Internet remains the best way.
And for those of us stuck with a slow internet connection, removable media is the only option (hell, I don't want it to take two weeks to upload my weekly backup!).