# HDD Head failure, data recovery.
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [July 11, 2011, 9:01am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401 "2011-07-11T09:01:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Spam16v](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Spam16v)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 9:01am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/1 "2011-07-11T09:01:24Z")
Got a personal friend who lost a head on a Hitachi HDD. 3 platters, and park ramp style. Explicit details available on model ect available. Anyone do this or have any “in’s” with someone who does this work? He’s more than willing to pay for the work, but would like to do this for less than the crazy quotes he’s recieved. If it puts cash in someone’s pocket or one of your friend’s pockets, and recovery is sucessful, you will be rewarded greatly for your time and efforts. He’s 3 months away from his backup on his business records, quickbooks, among other things so he just didn’t lose his Justin Beiber albums.
Thanks
-Zac
[Spam16v@gmail.com](mailto:Spam16v@gmail.com) quicker than PM’s.
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### Author:  [@TradersBASE](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/TradersBASE)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 9:07am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/2 "2011-07-11T09:07:43Z")
MAD expensive. Requires a clean room etc…
We had to ship one out at work and it was like $1800.
I’m interested to know if anyone has the hookup just in case I need work in the future.
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### Author:  [@Gus](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Gus)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/3 "2011-07-11T09:08:13Z")
USB to SATA cable
or Boot to ERD… but idk if you can copy from ERD
edit
Head failure doesn’t always mean “OMG I have to crack this bitch open.” The drive could just be “throwing” codes… like a car.
I’ve had success throwing a HDD in the freezer for an hour then using USB to SATA
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### Author:  [@tpgsr](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/tpgsr)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 9:12am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/4 "2011-07-11T09:12:12Z")
PM Clean Baldy. He did this for me in the past for what I considered a reasonable rate.
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### Author:  [@Spam16v](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Spam16v)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:02am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/5 "2011-07-11T10:02:45Z")
> [@tpgsr](#):
>
> PM Clean Baldy. He did this for me in the past for what I considered a reasonable rate.
PM box is full, have contact with him in RL anyone? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:02am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/6 "2011-07-11T10:02:52Z")
If the head is bad, you can’t really do it with software. you need to ship it out and have someone in a clean room rebuild the discs and heads.
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### Author:  [@Spam16v](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Spam16v)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:06am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/7 "2011-07-11T10:06:56Z")
> [@Gus](#):
>
> USB to SATA cable
>
> or Boot to ERD… but idk if you can copy from ERD
>
> edit
>
> Head failure doesn’t always mean “OMG I have to crack this bitch open.” The drive could just be “throwing” codes… like a car.
>
> I’ve had success throwing a HDD in the freezer for an hour then using USB to SATA
From my understanding heads are DOA, twitch, twitch, flatline… If it were music files, we’d freezer the bitch, but it’s his entire business invoicing database and quickbooks file. Something happened with backup, so it’s only intact until March, so it’s about a months time to reinput from hardcopies, or pay for recovery.
---------- Post added at 12:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------
> [@boxxa](#):
>
> If the head is bad, you can’t really do it with software. you need to ship it out and have someone in a clean room rebuild the discs and heads.
Local shop quoted $1450-2200 for try. He was ready for $500-700, but double that for a sub 100gig HDD seemed excessive.
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### Author:  [@JayS](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JayS)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:10am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/8 "2011-07-11T10:10:43Z")
[http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/](http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/)
That’s who we send all our customers too when they royally fuck up their backup and need data recovered. No hookup on price, and they’re expensive, but I’d trust them much more than some local shop.
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### Author:  [@ProgRocker](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/ProgRocker)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:18am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/9 "2011-07-11T10:18:08Z")
Yeah if the heads are fucked, that’s about as far as you’re going to get with it. $500-700 would probably be an accurate price for a 8GB drive. If it doesn’t work as it is, the one way to make it worse is to keep trying to power it on or connect it externally. If you want the data back you’ll be sending it to the professionals in a clean room.
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### Author:  [@Gus](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Gus)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:27am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/10 "2011-07-11T10:27:56Z")
Yeah I really didn’t understand how much he was willing to spend… I’m sure he’s already tried to boot it a bunch.
Anyways, if he’s going to drop $700-1k to have the drive recovered, it’s not going to be any user on here. Going forward, he shouldn’t take such a chance with his data. Especially with a Hitachi drive. I believe Western Digital has a data recovery service along with their amazing warranty.
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### Author:  [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 10:43am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/hdd-head-failure-data-recovery/214401/11 "2011-07-11T10:43:50Z")
> [@Spam16v](#):
>
> Local shop quoted $1450-2200 for try. He was ready for $500-700, but double that for a sub 100gig HDD seemed excessive.
Sounds about right. The process is very time consuming and requires very particular tools and environment to do. The space isn’t really the big deal, its the taking apart and rebuilding the physical platters and head of the drive.
Hell, when I was doing the software side of computer forensics to recover hard drives that were corrupt and get info about employees who were fired, I was able to bill out $300-$1000 for data off “wiped” drives and that wasn’t even taking the drive apart.