That dead hard drive took out 3 years of client tax files

Last Tuesday I had a client's Seagate 2TB just stop spinning mid-afternoon with no warning and no backups on their end. I spent 4 hours with a hex kit trying to swap the controller board but the platters were already scratched. Has anyone else had luck getting files off a drive that makes that clicking noise before it fully dies?

3 comments

3 Comments

susana661mo agoMost Upvoted

Calm down lol, it is not that serious. I mean yeah losing data sucks but 3 years of tax files from a client who didnt back up? Thats on them honestly. You can only do so much when someone refuses to follow basic data safety rules. Pulling the controller board off a clicking drive was already a long shot anyway. If it was really that critical they would have set up cloud backups or at least a second drive. Sounds more like a lesson learned than a tragedy to me.

gray61mo ago

You said "it is not that serious" but losing 3 years of tax files is pretty serious for a client... I mean yeah they should have backed up but sometimes people just don't think about it until its too late. You act like everyone knows all this data safety stuff but most normal folks just trust their computer to work. And pulling a controller board off a clicking drive is actually a real technique if you do it right, its not just some random gamble. I've seen people lose everything because they trusted their computer and didnt realize drives fail until it happens. So maybe its not a tragedy but acting like its no big deal seems kinda cold to me.

norathomas21h ago

@susana66 kinda sounds like my delusional optimism when i panic-google "how to fix clicking hard drive" at 2am. i once tried to revive a dead drive with a freezer trick because a youtube comment said it worked... spoiler: it did not. @gray6 you're not wrong though, that tech's gonna be eating ramen for a month if that client doesn't have another copy.