[vox-tech] Dying Power Supply killed drive

[Jan W]

Hi Alex:

I would use knoppix and another machine.

I would hook up your dying drive and another (maybe removable usb?,
that is if you're not copying gigs of stuff) drive to copy it to.

Boot knoppix, and mount the two drives.  If the drives both mount, then
you're probably going to be fine.  If your dying drive does not mount,
not all hope is lost, but things get much more time-consuming.

Here at work we had a way-old system that was doing our firewall.  It
had quite a number of scripts for the firewall and traffic shaping that
were all custom for our setup.  The IDE port went sour, and promptly
killed the drive.  So we actually put the drive in the freezer (in a
moisture-proof bag), and it spun up and mounted for just long enough to
copy our stuff off.  I have heard the freezer trick work for quite a
few people, but just make sure to remember that condensation and
moisture is a killer for drives.  The freezer is _the_ last resort ("we
can't read it anyway, so it's freezer or trash the thing").  Sometimes,
we even make a chiller-bowl where we have ice in a bowl, and set the
drive in a smaller dry bowl on top.  But water and electronics do NOT
mix, so be very very very careful when doing any of the things I have
just mentioned.  The things that I mention will for sure, without a
doubt, RUIN your drive if done incorrectly (here's the part where my
arms fling about wildly and I say "Danger Will Robinson!").  I make no
guarantee, and any risks you take by doing this are entirely your own;
consider yourselves warned.  But as long as the drive is COOL & DRY,
everything should be ok.  The drive doesn't need to be as cold as a
popsicle, just cool to the touch.

Best of luck, hopefully your drive mounts for long enough for you to
get a backup off of it.  The places that reconstruct dead drives really
cost do cost alot (in some cases thousands).  

--HTH

jan

--- Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com> wrote:

> So, before I could migrate machines, which was next on my list of
> things 
> to do, 1/2 my power supply went out.
> The 1/2 that kept my hard drive going of course; when I figured this
> out 
> I got the drive booted off the remaining lines and at least got it to
> 
> see the hard drive.
> Linux started to boot, kernel unpacking, then somewhere in the middle
> of 
> initialization before X starts it just hangs & jumps me from the
> Ubuntu 
> loading screen back to
> "uncompressing kernel..."
> 
> Ok, so how do I recover the drive?
> -Knoppix and make some tweaks?maybe find a bootlog
> 
> -reinstall the OS and remount my home, I think I have a copy of /etc
> in 
> my home that I could restore (I don't think it has my most recent
> Zope 
> and Cups tweaks from last weekend but I could redo those)
> 
> -Pop the HD into another machine and rescue the files then move them
> to 
> a fresh machine
> 
> I've used many a program in windows to recover lost files on windows
> for 
> Fat & NTFS but never for EXT3, what should I use?
> 
> Thanks,
> Alex
> _______________________________________________
> vox-tech mailing list
> vox-tech at lists.lugod.org
> http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
> 


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