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Old 05-17-2018, 09:47 AM
 
Location: Oregon Coast
15,201 posts, read 8,806,535 times
Reputation: 20235

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OK, here's the story. I was using my Mac Pro Tower, and everything was normal. Then suddenly I got a disk full warning. Which was strange, because I was not doing anything that should have been filling up the disk. The last time I checked the disk was pretty full, but not full enough to be concerned about it. I wasn't getting any warning of low disk space, or anything. Anyway I checked the Activity Monitor, and sure enough my 1TB hard drive was completely full. The first thing I did was to start shutting down apps, that I didn't need. I got the message that changes could not be saved, which I expected. I checked the Activity Monitor again, and it showed that I had a small sliver of free disk space. I think it was about 5GB. Then I got the message: "error -10810 . the application Finder could not be opened". I have never seen that before. After Googling the code, I found mixed information. Everything from you're screwed, to just restart the computer. Other solutions were too complicated for me. I decided at that point, I didn't have much to lose, so I force restarted the computer. Sure enough, the computer restarted with a ? folder.

So I pulled the hard drive and put it in an external enclosure and hooked it up to another computer. The hard drive seems to power up just fine. It makes normal hard drive clicking sounds for 10 or 15 seconds, and then it shuts down. It shows up on the computer as an unrecognized device. My feeling is that the problem is software related. Because the hard drive seems to be functioning just fine. What's strange to me, is that when I have had problems like this before, usually the disk just ends up with a message "OS X can't repair disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk". But this time I can't seem to even get that.

The next problem. I feel like a fool, but I have a lot of important files on this drive that many are not backed up, and it's going to mess me up for a long time to come, if I don't have them. So I'm now looking into my data recovery options. I think I'm going to take the hard drive to a Mac Repair shop in a another town that advertises data recovery.

So I guess my questions are, does anybody have any advice on data recovery? How much should I expect to pay? Can my data even be recovered or is it toast? Do you think my problem is software or hardware related? I'd be interested in hearing anyones experiences with recovering data from a crashed hard drive. Thanks in advance.
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:42 AM
 
2,713 posts, read 5,339,526 times
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Disk clicking for 10-15 seconds is not normal.

There are a couple of options that I have used in situations like these. Your mileage may vary.

Disk Warrior is a program that may be able to repair the disk.

Data Rescue 3 will scan the bad drive that is hooked up externally to another Mac (may take a LONG time) and find files that you can pull off the bad drive.

I have nothing to do with the companies that make these tools. I've just used them both with success in the past. Use them at your own risk. Of course, if your drive is toast now, anything may be worth a try.

If you are afraid, there are services like Gillware (Have nothing to do with them, just used them a few times at the job when we were unsuccessful in house) but that will cost. They will have you send them the drive and then email you exactly what they found before you pay. If you decide to pay, they will send your recovered data back on DVDs or an external drive. If you find it too expensive, they will just return your drive to you.

Good luck!
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Old 05-17-2018, 12:11 PM
 
Location: Oregon Coast
15,201 posts, read 8,806,535 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cleasach View Post
Disk clicking for 10-15 seconds is not normal.

There are a couple of options that I have used in situations like these. Your mileage may vary.

Disk Warrior is a program that may be able to repair the disk.

Data Rescue 3 will scan the bad drive that is hooked up externally to another Mac (may take a LONG time) and find files that you can pull off the bad drive.

I have nothing to do with the companies that make these tools. I've just used them both with success in the past. Use them at your own risk. Of course, if your drive is toast now, anything may be worth a try.

If you are afraid, there are services like Gillware (Have nothing to do with them, just used them a few times at the job when we were unsuccessful in house) but that will cost. They will have you send them the drive and then email you exactly what they found before you pay. If you decide to pay, they will send your recovered data back on DVDs or an external drive. If you find it too expensive, they will just return your drive to you.

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions. DiskWarrior is an excellent suggestion. I had forgotten about that. I have a copy somewhere. But I think it's probably too old, probably PPC. I still have a couple of old hard drives that were revived with DW 20 years ago, and they still work. The problem I would have using anything on it right now, is getting it to recognize the disk. I will look into your other suggestions too. I'm also worried a little bit about messing around with it too much and maybe damaging the drive worse than it is.

What I meant by normal clicking is that the drive powers up and sounds close to normal, for 15 seconds anyway. It's not completely dead, and it's not grinding on making any really loud sounds that would tell me that it is wrecked. I'm cautiously optimistic that the data can be recovered.

Again thanks for your suggestions.
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Old 05-17-2018, 01:29 PM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,464 posts, read 19,490,320 times
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Still doesn't sound normal to me. A healthy hard drive should be pretty quiet after 3 or 4 seconds.
It certainly doesn't sound like 'software'.
Someone at my job had a hard drive die. Paid around $1,200 to get about 98% of the data off the platters.
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Old 05-17-2018, 01:59 PM
 
Location: Oregon Coast
15,201 posts, read 8,806,535 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine View Post
Still doesn't sound normal to me. A healthy hard drive should be pretty quiet after 3 or 4 seconds.
It certainly doesn't sound like 'software'.
Someone at my job had a hard drive die. Paid around $1,200 to get about 98% of the data off the platters.
Ouch, if I have to do that, I hope I can get it cheaper then that. There is one place here that advertises a flat rate of $199, but they are too fly-by-night. So I know I'll have to pay more than that. I think next week I will go and talk to a couple of local Mac shops about it, and see what they suggest.
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Old 05-17-2018, 03:17 PM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,806,627 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz View Post
What I meant by normal clicking is that the drive powers up and sounds close to normal, for 15 seconds anyway
That would be one indicator it's the disk, when you turn it on it's cool and as it heats up things expand. There is very small tolerances involved so any mechanical parts like a bearing for example that have expanded due to heat may be the difference between it working and failing.


There is an old trick for this, I've tried this myself on one drive without success but I have read of others being successful. Put it in a ziploc bag and then put it in the freezer for few hours, once it's froze it may temporarily overcome those tolerance issues if that is the problem. Whatever you do make sure you are prepared to begin copying files if it boots.
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Old 05-17-2018, 03:29 PM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,806,627 times
Reputation: 17863
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz View Post
Ouch, if I have to do that, I hope I can get it cheaper then that. There is one place here that advertises a flat rate of $199, but they are too fly-by-night. So I know I'll have to pay more than that. I think next week I will go and talk to a couple of local Mac shops about it, and see what they suggest.
If those file are valuable I'd strongly urge you to research the company that you are gong to use. They need to open the drive and and any contaminants could screw the pooch. It's not something to trust with Moe, Larry and Curly if it's important. On the other hand if you don't want to spend the money you can try it yourself, the only thing you need is another drive that is the exact same one. This is a video for DIY from someone that does this professionally.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZx-tU1_gOw




There is a saying, "There is two kinds of people, those that backup and those that will". Sorry couldn't help myself.
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Old 05-17-2018, 04:41 PM
 
Location: Oregon Coast
15,201 posts, read 8,806,535 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman View Post
If those file are valuable I'd strongly urge you to research the company that you are gong to use. They need to open the drive and and any contaminants could screw the pooch. It's not something to trust with Moe, Larry and Curly if it's important. On the other hand if you don't want to spend the money you can try it yourself, the only thing you need is another drive that is the exact same one. This is a video for DIY from someone that does this professionally.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZx-tU1_gOw




There is a saying, "There is two kinds of people, those that backup and those that will". Sorry couldn't help myself.
My backup routine years ago used to be that every time I would fill up a hard drive, which happened about once a year, I would buy a new one twice the size. The old drive would become my backup. Which I never really needed anyway. Because the hard drives would always last at least a year, or they might fail right away, in which case I had the backup on the old drive.

Now with terabyte hard drives, they last me years. Most of my backups recently have just been making sure that important files are saved on two computers. Unfortunately I was copying more files from my laptop to the desktop, then from the desktop to the laptop. So I did lose important stuff.

I'm definitely not going to try and do it myself. That would be a fail, for sure. But I do have a matching hard drive, if I need parts.
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Old 05-17-2018, 04:55 PM
 
17,399 posts, read 14,953,741 times
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I don't think this will work here.. Based on the symptoms. The fact that it's spinning up then stopping indicates to me that it can't properly locate the 'home' sectors and you have an issue with a head or heads.



However.. There is a small chance that if you were to get an identical drive.. You could pull the circuit board and do a 'heart transplant'. If the circuit board is what failed, then this will bring the drive back into working order. In theory, for a long time.. But if it were me.. I'd pull data off it immediately.

should just need a torx driver to swap the boards. I've done this with success a time or twelve.. But based on the symptoms described, I'm not overly hopeful it will work. Usually when this works, the drive doesn't spin up at all or you hear none of the clicking of the heads searching for data, indicating the drive circuits for the spindle or heads have failed.

And they have to be IDENTICAL drives with identical boards. Not just same model number..
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Old 05-17-2018, 05:07 PM
 
Location: Oregon Coast
15,201 posts, read 8,806,535 times
Reputation: 20235
Quote:
Originally Posted by Labonte18 View Post
I don't think this will work here.. Based on the symptoms. The fact that it's spinning up then stopping indicates to me that it can't properly locate the 'home' sectors and you have an issue with a head or heads.



However.. There is a small chance that if you were to get an identical drive.. You could pull the circuit board and do a 'heart transplant'. If the circuit board is what failed, then this will bring the drive back into working order. In theory, for a long time.. But if it were me.. I'd pull data off it immediately.

should just need a torx driver to swap the boards. I've done this with success a time or twelve.. But based on the symptoms described, I'm not overly hopeful it will work. Usually when this works, the drive doesn't spin up at all or you hear none of the clicking of the heads searching for data, indicating the drive circuits for the spindle or heads have failed.

And they have to be IDENTICAL drives with identical boards. Not just same model number..
Thanks, great information. I do have an identical drive. I would just have to transfer that data to another drive. But I'm not real confident doing the 'heart transplant'. LOL.
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