HD dead caused by DEFRAG?!

[kogepan]

so my friend's computer was running slow so i told him to run a defrag to clear some hd space, day after that he told me his hd is dead! he found a computer guy to take a look and confirm that the hd is indeed dead...

wtf i run defrag once in a while to clean up space how the hell does that lead to killin a hd?! :confused:

is it maybe coz the hd was gonna die neways?

o ya forgot to add he actually had some really important data on it and now he gotta take it to 'expert' to recover the data

[gman]

so my friend's computer was running slow so i told him to run a defrag to clear some hd space, day after that he told me his hd is dead! he found a computer guy to take a look and confirm that the hd is indeed dead...

wtf i run defrag once in a while to clean up space how the hell does that lead to killin a hd?! :confused:

is it maybe coz the hd was gonna die neways?

It probably just because the hard disk was dying and the extra activities push it over the edge. If Defrag can kill a hard disk, it means the hard disk is bad. The worst defrag can do (says, there is a bug inside) is screw up the file system. It can't kill the disk.

[kogepan]

is there anyway to recover the data?

[AllWheelDrift]

is there anyway to recover the data?
How dead is the drive? Is it "won't boot" dead or "computer doesn't know it exists" dead? If it's the latter I think it could be pretty expensive to recover the data. If it's the former it could just be a corrupt OS and hooking it up to another PC might let you pull the data off the bad drive.

[kogepan]

at this point it wont boot. it just runs scan disk but durin that it will freeze. btw this is a secondary drive not the main. so no windows on it. the computer dude suggested to take it to a pro..but im just tyrin to see if there's other ways. though taking it to a pro would probably be the best solution

[AllWheelDrift]

at this point it wont boot. it just runs scan disk but durin that it will freeze. btw this is a secondary drive not the main. so no windows on it. the computer dude suggested to take it to a pro..but im just tyrin to see if there's other ways. though taking it to a pro would probably be the best solution
Skip the scan disk (I think there's an option) and boot to windows and try to copy the data off the drive. Or just let it finish the scan disk. It sounds like there's bad sectors and it should eventually finish.

[kogepan]

Skip the scan disk (I think there's an option) and boot to windows and try to copy the data off the drive. Or just let it finish the scan disk. It sounds like there's bad sectors and it should eventually finish.
it wont let him exit coz u can exit the scan disk. and when he does let it run it'll freeze. he tried a couple times, same result. the computer dude said it's dead and the data can only be recovered by an expert, so the drive is taken outa the computer for now. dunno the exact situation coz he just called when the computer guy was lookin at the drive.

[kogepan]

i googled the problem and found this
http://www.deadharddrive.com/

do u guys think i should give this a try on my friend's hd? coz if he takes it to an expert it will cost a bunch to recover the data.

[Kinki]

Defragging works the harddrive pretty intensively. If not enough cooling is provided during defragging, it can degrade the quality of a perfectly normal drive (kill a dieing drive). Most harddrive deaths are the result of heat.

[Cafe_333]

That deadharddrive.com story was funny, lol - buddy went through soo much trouble and money just to recover some NeverWinterNights saved games, haha. Anyway, that method does sound feesible to work provided that the logic board was indeed fried - but most harddrive failures are due to the development of bad sectors, spindle failures, or headcrashes. From what it sounds like for your friend's drive, it's more likely to be one of these scenarios considering it failed after a defrag and freezes during scans.

If you were looking for some kind of vindication out of this thread, in all fairness, yes it was dying to begin with. Defragging is a commonly used windows task and will not do anything damaging to a healthy and well maintained drive. *However*, the process might have pushed the drive over the edge. Again I stress it was hanging by its last thread anyway. But because of how you approached the situation, you are actually part liable for what happend. Anytime you do something intensive with another computer, you must warn them beforehand on risk of failure so that they can prepare for it - such as backup their data. Hard lesson learned I guess...

[sleepyguy]

hd was on the way to dying anyway... not your fault.


so my friend's computer was running slow so i told him to run a defrag to clear some hd space, day after that he told me his hd is dead! he found a computer guy to take a look and confirm that the hd is indeed dead...

wtf i run defrag once in a while to clean up space how the hell does that lead to killin a hd?! :confused:

is it maybe coz the hd was gonna die neways?

o ya forgot to add he actually had some really important data on it and now he gotta take it to 'expert' to recover the data

[willy]

o ya forgot to add he actually had some really important data on it and now he gotta take it to 'expert' to recover the data
Failing to back up important data, he only got himself to blame. Period.

[sleepyguy]

indeed... with the price of cdrw and cdr media... no excuse.


Failing to back up important data, he only got himself to blame. Period.

[manlyputter]

Try putting the hard drive in a ziplock bag then sticking it in the freezer for maybe 4-5 hours. Have a computer ready and then take it out and quickly try and recover data by booting it up as a secondary drive. Suprisingly, this works in alot of cases.

[evilserge]

if the important data was porno, just let it go :(
If it were important you would've made a backup so i guess it is porno :P
but if you want to somehow save it, it is best to keep the hd with no activity at all.

[SuperManh]

I had a similar experience, somehow defragged corrupted my hd which makes it unrecognizable by windows
I was able to recover all the data using GetDataBack, they have two version, NTFS and FAT.
The other alternative is Active Partition Recovery, as long as the drive is detected in bios, it'll be able to recover the partition.
Good luck

[ShadowVlican]

ouch that must've sucked.... recovering data from dead hdds are expensive :evil:

[kogepan]

I had a similar experience, somehow defragged corrupted my hd which makes it unrecognizable by windows
I was able to recover all the data using GetDataBack, they have two version, NTFS and FAT.
The other alternative is Active Partition Recovery, as long as the drive is detected in bios, it'll be able to recover the partition.
Good luck
i think his computer detects the hd on the bios but it forces windows to run scan disk on it rite after booting. how did u manage to run the software on it?

[SuperManh]

i think his computer detects the hd on the bios but it forces windows to run scan disk on it rite after booting. how did u manage to run the software on it?
There should be an option to cancel a scan disk before it starts, usually by pressing any key. Active partition recovery is a bootdisk, it runs before windows is loaded. I strongly recommend trying GetDataBack before Active Partition. It's very user friendly compares to the ACtive Partition

[terrybear]

Well from what ya said the drive probly cacked if he has let it go for a long amount of time & not defraged.

I ran into a simular problem on a friends pc awhile back .. in 2 yrs of having the pc they never did a scandisk or defrag once & it corupted the drive tot he point it requited a format & once it was done it worked great after that.

I also have a friend down in the us have the 120 WD Sata drive in his Dell die .. they where pretty good about it & had him a new drive in like 3 days time once he reported it to them ..

Just goes to show ya not doing defrag & scandisks can affect a hard drive's lifetime.

[supergenius]

You can try and run Sprinrite 6.0 to recover the data, it can work wonders! I had a windows partition fail and no matter what I did I could not get the PC to boot. I ran Sprinrite on the disk and it recovered enough data to enable me to boot up again. It can take awhile while its trying to recover data but it does work.