[olug] Rescue CD

[Daniel Linder]

On Mon, March 19, 2007 18:54, swanpoint at cox.net wrote:
> thanks for the replies; after putting a full day into this it looks like
> if the data is to be recovered, it will have to be at the expense of some
> real $$$. Any experience out there with "clean room" professional
> services? I hear $500 -- $4,000 estimates being thrown about. These iMac
> OEM Maxtors have a reputation.

The clean-room costs can be prohibitive for most people.  Before you go
that route, check out "Spin Rite" (http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm).  It's
only $89 so even if you still have to send it to the clean-room, it's not
much more.

Over Christmas I was able use it to resurrect an in-laws HDD just long
enough to get the data onto the replacement drive.  I wouldn't recommend
running it any longer than necessary to "refresh" the data (or whatever it
claims to do).  After the data was rescued I put the HDD into another
system and continued to run SpinRite to see if I could get the two
remaining files.  After letting it run all night on the highest level, the
HDD was completely toast and the BIOS couldn't even talk to it reliably
anymore.

Dan

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