Crashed HDD with Footage. There is a tiny hope but I need a creative Solution.

Started by johannsebastianbach, February 21, 2017, 07:27:36 PM

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johannsebastianbach

Hello dear community.

I was shooting in Japan and had all my Data on a external HFS+ WD 2TB which I bought there. I KNOW... :-[  I normally ALWAYS back up two/three times at least until the Project is done but I only had this 2TB with me and since it was just for myself without a client I trusted the fresh HDD. The Footage converted on my old mac for like a week and I got about 100+ GB of ProRes files out of the MLV's.

Then I had some other Files copied out of the HDD and the copy task failed. The HDD didn't react on anything and, of course, I tried to repair the drive with Disk Utility but it didn't work. Disk Warrior couldn't help too, but OSX somehow connected to the drive in a special mode (I forgot the term) and the files are accessible, but VERY VERY slow 10-50 kb/s! Even just to show files in folders is very slow. So it is theoretically possible to get the files, but it would take about a year to do so.

My Idea was now to somehow extract the previews of the files, or all the beginning frames "*_000000.dng" of the 300 MLV's to see which clips are the most important and just leave the mac on for a couple of months to get at least something out for my demo-reel with which I intend to apply to Film-Univercity in May. MLVFS indexes the MLV Folder but as soon I want to search for frames containing the name "000000" it shows maximum one file, then MLVFS crashes and throws the virtual volume off.

Might there be a way with the ProRes Files? They don't need MLVFS but Finder or Bridge alone don't give me any Thumbnails. I searched the net for solutions but there was nothing possible. Giving it to a Data Rescue Firm is not in my budget too. Does somebody have a Idea what I should do (besides Back up more often in the future) :D to get out the Thumbnails or even repair the disk?

I'd appreciate any help!

BBA

I am not a specialist nor do I have experience in repairing HDD.
Just trying to help!
Lest's suppose the disk plates, motor and the head mechanical parts have not been damaged (no special noises, no clicking heads...).
If you can find the same drive model (cfr part number), it may be interesting to replace the printed circuit of the damaged HDD with the printed circuit of a new working one.
Fingers crossed, this may help but it is impossible to be sure.

g3gg0

sad to hear that.
maybe you should contact professional help for that issue.
of course it depends on what exactly went wrong with your disk and which part of your tries to recover were destructive.

BR,
g3gg0
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togg

You could try to bypass the enclosure yes. The problem could be there. Wish you best of luck!

beauchampy

Quote from: togg on March 18, 2017, 02:24:17 PM
You could try to bypass the enclosure yes. The problem could be there. Wish you best of luck!

Unfortunately, most modern 2.5" external drives now come with the drive attached to the PCB, it's a bit of a nightmare if one fails.

@ johannsebastianbach It may sound obvious and stupid, but have you tried a different USB cable? I've often found using a cable which is too long on a portable drives means there are power issues.

johannsebastianbach

So I bothered the HDD more and more to find out which clips are which, but the hdd didn't like it, broke the file system and finally closed access to all files. A professional rescue cost 1000$, so I just sent it to WD and got a new one within warranty. Always double backup!

g3gg0

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