I've used Spinrite to recover data and files from drives that are so corrupt, most all the files had errors, and if left to try to fix most of them, We'd ne on version 8.0 of Spinrite.
Here are some tricks I've used to fix portions of drives, enough to get the files I wanted at least. In one case, I'd use it long enough to boot, do what I needed, before it would crash again.:
These are all for magnetic drives, so YMMV:
--- Change the POSITION ---
I've occasionally had luck my running the drive upside down, or at 90 degrees. This is on laptop drives, so you'd think gravity wouldn't matter, but sometimes this works. As I remember, I think I used this to get a complete image backup.
--- Change the TEMPERATURE ---
I had one drive, I'd put in the freezer for a while, then protect it after hooking it up, so it wouldn't be covered with condensation. I'd get maybe 10-15 minutes of use before it "froze" the system.
--- Bump, or find a connection that works when you press on it in a specific place in a specific way.
This is usually not going to work. But hey, better than nothing sometimes. I had a device with an intermittent LED, and if I squeezed it, I could read the LED's color. Decades ago, with an old ST-506 20 MB drive, I opened it up, added a bit of pressure on the heads, and got it to read long enough to get some files. Clean rooms aren't always required I guess!! Hey, it beats having to "align the heads" on 40 or 80 track floppies, using different hair densities to use as shims.
Thanks -- This all really occurred.
-- Alan Welsh -- Columbia Data Products --
-- I just bought a "new" 6.0, awaiting 6.1 and beyond! -- Thanks Steve for everything...
Here are some tricks I've used to fix portions of drives, enough to get the files I wanted at least. In one case, I'd use it long enough to boot, do what I needed, before it would crash again.:
These are all for magnetic drives, so YMMV:
--- Change the POSITION ---
I've occasionally had luck my running the drive upside down, or at 90 degrees. This is on laptop drives, so you'd think gravity wouldn't matter, but sometimes this works. As I remember, I think I used this to get a complete image backup.
--- Change the TEMPERATURE ---
I had one drive, I'd put in the freezer for a while, then protect it after hooking it up, so it wouldn't be covered with condensation. I'd get maybe 10-15 minutes of use before it "froze" the system.
--- Bump, or find a connection that works when you press on it in a specific place in a specific way.
This is usually not going to work. But hey, better than nothing sometimes. I had a device with an intermittent LED, and if I squeezed it, I could read the LED's color. Decades ago, with an old ST-506 20 MB drive, I opened it up, added a bit of pressure on the heads, and got it to read long enough to get some files. Clean rooms aren't always required I guess!! Hey, it beats having to "align the heads" on 40 or 80 track floppies, using different hair densities to use as shims.
Thanks -- This all really occurred.
-- Alan Welsh -- Columbia Data Products --
-- I just bought a "new" 6.0, awaiting 6.1 and beyond! -- Thanks Steve for everything...
