[Techtalk] failed hard drive recovery

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

Hi there,

> yesterday morning my primary hard drive seems to  have failed - the
> bios on 2 computers is unable to see it and it acquired the click of
> death last time I tried to access it.

bad sign ...
 
> So far googling says my best bets appear to be to freeze it, hit it,
> or drop it in an attempt to realign the geometry. Does anyone here
> have any other suggestions or caveats before I commence to abusing
> the drive?

Well the 'hit it' solution once worked, but ti's a kind of lottery.
As far as I know, the other solution would be to give the hard disk to
specialized companies that put the drive in parts and recover data "by
hand" ... this has a cost.
How much are you willing to give away for the data ?

Else, you may, as Conor said, wait some days, try the freeze-it
solution or even the hit it (not too hard, please).

+++
ath

R. Daneel Olivaw,
The Human Robot Inside.