Re: Need help with a totally avoidable problem

"Joe Gill" <joegill@[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| "Frog Prince" <[email protected]> wrote in message
| news:[email protected]...
|
| > | Given the noise issue, I would say it's more likely mechanical than
| > | electrical, so you may luck out with the first method.
| >
| > Money is not an option as these folk take a lot of small contributions
| > coupled with sheer force of will and a lot of volunteers make it do
| > multiples of  what one would expect.
| >
| > frankly I did find a back up of the needed file but that was the end of
| > September so some poor volunteer is going to have to finger bone the
data
| > from Sept forward.
| >
| > Seems to spin up but unable to access the data on the drive.
| >
|
| <SNIP>
|
| 1) Does this happen to be a Western Digital drive? If so is the noise a
| 'clicking' variety?
| This may be a case for the 'deep freeze' treatment, after all other option
| fail!

No Quantum.  Label says it's a Dell P/N 00019tuy-12542-015-03t0

| 2) To when mounted in your system, what did you see? I know you said
"unable
| to access the data on the drive", but what exactly did you see?  No
message?
| No action? No response? What's in the event log?

The computer has a generic error message that while it does not specifically
say so in retrospect the error message was your drive is toast.

| 3) I know the org has 'shallow pockets', but what is the value of the data
| on the drive? If for example, it contains the name/addresses/phones/ of
all
| the people who have 'deep pockets' who support the org, it may be a case
of
| investing $xxx to get back the list(s).

Records are a list of food stamp recipients, the data is in very poor
quality hard copy.  Will require a lot of work on the part of a willing
volunteer.

| 4) Some(I know at least one) of the recovery companies that does 'remote'
| recoveries on your PC.
| (Unmunge my address to request the name that I used)
|
| 5) Another possibility is to find someone who has an 'image copy' program
and
| copy the data off the drive, telling the program to attempt to copy all
| sectors. Take that copy and work with it. Start with CHKDSK /F on the COPY
!

How to do this if the system will not recognize the drive?  I've put this
drive on another computer running the same OS as a secondary and get an
error message that the drive needs to be formatted.