[colug-432] I/O Error?

[Rick Hornsby]

On Dec 6, 2012, at 17:48 PM, Bill Baker <bill_chris at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Just to add my two cents and plug a piece of software, I once had a hard
> drive that was completely dead.  Couldn't boot up or even read it as a
> secondary drive.  All the data on it would have been gone if I hadn't
> tried SpinRite.  After running it on the drive, I was able to recover
> all of the data from it and even boot the drive again.  It's really an
> amazing piece of software and it weighs in at only 170K, which includes
> FreeDOS so that it can boot from a floppy, CD or thumb drive.  It can be
> purchased here:
> 
> http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

That is really good to know, thanks.  Always keeping my eyes open for good tools like this.

Have to be honest.  I'm with the sentiment that others have expressed - get your data off the drive. now.  If a tool like spinrite lets the drive live long enough to manage that, great.  It just paid for itself and was definitely worth it.  If it brings a drive back from the dead - I'm tempted to buy it right now just to have it on hand.  

However, I'm really hesitant to ever trust the drive for anything remotely important again.  As someone else said, rip out the magnets and call it done.  Maybe try a WillItBlend experiment with the platters.  Drives are cheap compared to what you lose when it barfs on itself, and chances are you can get a bigger drive (thus risking more data to a single piece of hardware ... hmm) for whatever you bought the newly acquired doorstop for.