Any possible way to recover a dead hard drive?

A friend at work came to me panicked that his laptop was broke and he had tons of pictures of his grandkids on it. So I said sure I would look at it, I have tried everything I can to get it working. Tried booting laptop via different boot starts, popped it into my desktop as a secondary HD, but to no avail. I really want to try and get his pictures off there so if anyone has any suggestions it will be greatly appreciated.
Answer #1
If it’s dead you need to take it to a professional data recovery firm..I does cost…
Or if you can get hold of the exact HD model..You can swap the circuit board..
Freezer method might or might not..
Answer #2
Was it recognized in BIOS when you hooked it up to your desktop?
Is it an IDE or SATA one? What brand/capacity?
Answer #3
1. Do you receive an Error while booting the laptop?, or just blank screen? 2. Does the hard drive make any noise, once plugged in? 3.When you plug into Desktop does your pc see the HD? Trying plugging hd into 2.5″ external drive, or swap into another laptop.
Answer #4
Pekul replied: 1. Do you receive an Error while booting the laptop?, or just blank screen? 2. Does the hard drive make any noise, once plugged in? 3.When you plug into Desktop does your pc see the HD? Trying plugging hd into 2.5" external drive, or swap into another laptop.
1. Blank screen
2. Not that I can hear really
3. Not showing up
4. Swapped into my own laptop and didn’t boot up either.
Its a 500gb WD and its strange cause thats the first WD I have seen crap out (in my experience).
Answer #5
Does the Blank screen have flashing dash?
Answer #6
Lenerdosy replied:
Its a 500gb WD and its strange cause thats the first WD I have seen crap out (in my experience).
I had 4 of em crap out myself,WD is too overrated IMO,Anyways,It’s clearly a PCB problem,Ask for a replacement
on the following forum:
http://forum.hddguru.com/hard-drive-market-f15.html
Include all information that appears on the sticker as well as the PCB number (which should be on electronics side on it’s own sticker)
Swapping a chip or two (firmware) might be needed too (from current pcb>new,Not the other way round) you might need to send
it to a specialist to do it for you if you can’t find someone local,Anyways,You’ll need to get a set of TORX screwdrivers,T9 in specific
is used on HDDs PCB.
Answer #7
Pekul replied: Does the Blank screen have flashing dash?No just lights up and is black with a purplish ting.
Took a picture but my phone just made it look black like it was turned off.
Answer #8
Put the hd back into laptop, Put the Win (IDK which Version your bud runs) CD in, turn laptop on, let cd boot up, go into repair,, or if first does not work, pull up dos, “chkdsk r”
Answer #9
I thought the HDD was not even recognized? How is he to do that?
Answer #10
A computer tech mate of mine has had success with seemingly dead drives. Put it in a freezer bag & put it in the freezer for a good few hours & then try it again. With this method, he has had some success.
Answer #11
Go into BIOS (Laptop) and check if HDD is showing up Under Boot, if it pulls a name , its alive just not booting.
Answer #12
Pekul replied: Go into BIOS (Laptop) and check if HDD is showing up Under Boot, if it pulls a name , its alive just not booting.
Yea got Boot priority order listed as the first one.
1: IDEO: WDC WD5000BEVT-22A0RT0-(S1
So it is showing up.
Answer #13
And to think that I asked you to check on BIOS first and you completely ignored me,And it wasn’t the only time either
Not gonna bother replying here anymore.
Answer #14
Roberto400 replied: And to think that I asked you to check on BIOS first and you completely ignored me,And it wasn't the only time either
Not gonna bother replying here anymore.
Yea havent been able to hook it back up to my Desktop again like your originally asked, was gonna do that tomorrow morning, been sleeping all day and havent left my couch since I got off work this morning. Didn’t mean to ignore you, just been only about half awake all day.
Roberto400 replied: Lenerdosy replied:
Its a 500gb WD and its strange cause thats the first WD I have seen crap out (in my experience).
I had 4 of em crap out myself,WD is too overrated IMO,Anyways,It's clearly a PCB problem,Ask for a replacement
on the following forum:
http://forum.hddguru.com/hard-drive-market-f15.html
Include all information that appears on the sticker as well as the PCB number (which should be on electronics side on it's own sticker)
Swapping a chip or two (firmware) might be needed too (from current pcb>new,Not the other way round) you might need to send
it to a specialist to do it for you if you can't find someone local,Anyways,You'll need to get a set of TORX screwdrivers,T9 in specific
is used on HDDs PCB.What exactly happens when I ask for a replacement?
Pekul replied: Put the hd back into laptop, Put the Win (IDK which Version your bud runs) CD in, turn laptop on, let cd boot up, go into repair,, or if first does not work, pull up dos, "chkdsk r"
Will try that tomorrow morning when I get my disc.
Pekul replied: Go into BIOS (Laptop) and check if HDD is showing up Under Boot, if it pulls a name , its alive just not booting.
How you get it into BIOS? I cant seem to get it on this god damn laptop.
Answer #15
try the “freezer trick”
put it into the freezer for a few hours or overnite, put it in a plastic bag to keep moisture from freezing on it
take it out and fire it up and be ready to copy your stuff when you do, it may only work for a short period of time
recovered a dropped laptop drive this way
my theory: the head pivot arm got jammed and freezing it “shrunk” the metal to allow it to move again
and I’ve had some that needed more than one “freezing” to get all the data off of it
I’m 4 out of 6 with this method over the last 4 years