[NBLUG/talk] [SoCoSA/discuss] Burnt Laptops

[Trevor Benson]

Were you looking into FULL recovery of the OS and all data on the  
drive, or specific recovery of a set amount of data from known  
directories?  Generally Drive Savers will customize their quote for  
recovery, and I have seen charges well less then $1,000 for getting  
what you need, not 100% of the OS and junk that will be reinstalled  
anyway.


Trevor Benson
A1 Networks
(707)570-2021 x201
tbenson at a-1networks.com



On Apr 9, 2009, at 4:13 PM, gandalf at sonic.net wrote:

> 1. I looked into DriveSavers and the $1k+ pricetag per drive is  
> beyond what I could resource for this.
> 2. I looked into a competitor and it's still in the $1k per drive  
> range although significantly lighter than drivesavers and with only  
> a $50 evaluation fee.
> 3. I think it is very likely that these drives (or some of them) may  
> spin up allowing file transfer.
> 4. I think it is rather likely that some of these drives may work  
> and continue to work without issue.
> 5. I think what I want to attempt is probably what all drive  
> restoration places would do in the first place anyway.
> 6. The next step after a failed os/image restoration is drive board  
> replacement and that doesn't seem difficult, but instead tedious in  
> finding a donor drive from ebay. The drive needs to match the  
> production dates for the given drive within two weeks and be the  
> exact same in other respects.
>
> Now to my thinking I can do all of these steps and if the drive  
> still doesn't work then turn it over to one of these companies.  
> However I think it is very unlikely that there is any actual  
> physical damage to the motor/arm and plates (insides). Most likely  
> the damage would be limited to the exterior circuit board.
>
> I base this upon the level of physical damage to the drives. Two of  
> the drives were hot enough that plastic to some extent melted on  
> them. This would mean that the area around these drives was 300-600  
> degrees. I have heard that the inside elements of drives are good to  
> about 1800 degrees. I'm sure that at 1800 degrees the plastic would  
> not have just melted. I'm sure that parts of the laptops were  
> exposed to 1800 degree heat, but the drives were underneath  
> protected by several layers of motherboard, keyboard, etc. So I  
> think that the drives were probably only cooked to 450 degrees or  
> so. While this is outside normal drive operating temperatures I  
> don't think this is hot enough to damage the drive boards when they  
> were not powered up. However the plastic melted on the one drive  
> board is a concern. I think I should attempt to chip it off if I can  
> as I think it could cause shorts. But then plastic is an insulator.
>
> Anyway, that's how my thinking is currently going.
>
> (imagine a cute or dirty tagline here)
>
> On Thu 09/04/09  3:35 PM , "Jordan Erickson" jerickson at logicalnetworking.net 
>  sent:
>> If you've got the funds and/or your data is important enough, I would
>> *highly* recommend DriveSavers in Novato (www.drivesavers.com).  
>> They've recovered data from worse.
>>
>> If you want to go your own route, be very careful. Once you spin a  
>> drive
>> up that's been damaged, you're likely going to inflict more damage  
>> upon
>> it.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jordan
>>
>>
>>
>> gandalf at son
>> ic.net wrote:> Hey guys. In February my house burned up and
>> three laptops went with it. I have the three harddrives. I think  
>> they might
>> just spin up when connected to an os, but an unsure. There seems to  
>> be more
>> problems with things melted to them than them actually melting.  
>> Anyway I'm
>> trying to bone up on knowledge and come up with a plan before I do
>> anything. I'm thinking of getting a WD book terabyte drive for file/ 
>> image
>> backup. So I thought I'd post here and ask for input. >
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________> talk mailing list
>>> talk at nblug.org
>>> http://nblug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Jordan Erickson
>> Owner, Logical Networking Solutions
>> http://www.logicalnetworking.net707-636-5678
>>
>> Latest LNS Blogs - http://blog.logicalnetworking.net
>> Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year
>> Starbucks Ditches T-Mobile, Will Offer AT+T WiFi
>> Google Earth Uncovers Brit Nuclear Sub Base, Missile Facility
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SoCoSA discuss mailing list
> discuss at socosa.org
> Your address: tbenson at a-1networks.com
> http://socosa.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> http://socosa.org/mailman/options/discuss/tbenson%40a-1networks.com