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View Full Version : NEED HELP ASAP! Black This Out vid in Jeopardy




doctor jones
10-17-2011, 05:45 PM
I have been slaving over a pretty kick ass Black This Out promo video that chronicles the day in the life of ███ ████ in New York on September 26th. I uploaded a 13 sec. teaser a few days ago for some friends to view that you can see here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUhlnINVd5o

Unfortunately, last night I was going to put the finishing touches on the video to be uploaded and released this morning when my 3TB SATA Western Digital Hard Drive would not mount. I've tried everything I can think of to extract this data. I'm asking if anyone out there is a tech person and has an idea how I can recover these files to get the full video up before 10-19-11.

Please Help, I'm so sad right now :(

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 05:54 PM
If the hard drive is on (sounds like it) then Spinrite is your best option. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm Costs $89.00. If it don't work you can get your money back, no questions asked.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 05:57 PM
If the hard drive is on (sounds like it) then Spinrite is your best option. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm Costs $89.00. If it don't work you can get your money back, no questions asked.

Yes the hard drive is spinning.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 05:58 PM
I should also add that this is a MAC formatted drive.

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 06:01 PM
I should also add that this is a MAC formatted drive.

Not a problem as long as you are accessing it from a Windows PC.

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:02 PM
Couple Qs:

1) is there only a single 3TB drive in the enclosure, or is there more than one (which would mean a raid)?
2) are there any clicking sounds coming from the drive?
3) does the drive have other connectors other than SATA, and if so have you tried those?
4) do you have any other drives of the same brand with the same power source, and if so, have you tried the other power sources?
5) have you tried other SATA cords?

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:07 PM
Couple Qs:

1) is there only a single 3TB drive in the enclosure, or is there more than one (which would mean a raid)?
2) are there any clicking sounds coming from the drive?
3) does the drive have other connectors other than SATA, and if so have you tried those?
4) do you have any other drives of the same brand with the same power source, and if so, have you tried the other power sources?
5) have you tried other SATA cords?

1) No -- one big drive
2) No (thankfully)
3) Doesn't appear to be
4) Yes, I went and bought the same model again and tried that
5) Yes and it finally showed up in Disk Utility, when I clicked info it showed that there were 2.2 gig's worth of data but that the drive was unformatted

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:12 PM
Inside that enclosure is an everyday ole 3.5 SATA drive. The enclosure is just a means of powering the drive and getting at the data.

Do you have any other external drives where you could put the 3TB internal into? Or what about a Mac tower?

There may be a problem with the enclosure itself.

BTW are you on a Macbook or a tower?

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:17 PM
Inside that enclosure is an everyday ole 3.5 SATA drive. The enclosure is just a means of powering the drive and getting at the data.

Do you have any other external drives where you could put the 3TB internal into? Or what about a Mac tower?

There may be a problem with the enclosure itself.

BTW are you on a Macbook or a tower?

Macbook Pro Laptop. You mean opening up the HD itself? That I have not tried. I took it out of the Western Digital My Book Essential casing and took that little boot chip off it but didn't open up the HD itself was afraid to.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:18 PM
I heard putting it in the freezer helps, is this true? Why would that help?

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:22 PM
Macbook Pro Laptop. You mean opening up the HD itself? That I have not tried. I took it out of the Western Digital My Book Essential casing and took that little boot chip off it but didn't open up the HD itself was afraid to.

OK so I assume you have a little SATA card in the side slot of the laptop? That could be the problem as well.

Yes, opening up the HD. Once open you can easily remove the little board connected to the drive and it will be free. From there the bare drive can can be moved into another enclosure, or into a Mac Pro tower. All the drive's formatting and data was created by the Mac OS, the enclosure has nothing to do with it. Like I said, it's just a means to deliver power and a connector to the drive.

Umbro2914
10-17-2011, 06:23 PM
bump for dr. jones and good luck! your previous video(s) were superb, and am really looking forward to seeing this one

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 06:25 PM
I heard putting it in the freezer helps, is this true? Why would that help?

No. Harddisks are designed to work at room temperture 20'C

eduardo89
10-17-2011, 06:26 PM
Do you have another enclosure you could put the drive into? Or another computer to hook it up to? Are you sure your enclosure doesn't have USB, maybe the SATA port on your laptop isn't working?

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:27 PM
OK so I assume you have a little SATA card in the side slot of the laptop? That could be the problem as well.

Yes, opening up the HD. Once open you can easily remove the little board connected to the drive and it will be free. From there the bare drive can can be moved into another enclosure, or into a Mac Pro tower. All the drive's formatting and data was created by the Mac OS, the enclosure has nothing to do with it. Like I said, it's just a means to deliver power and a connector to the drive.

Right, I did remove that little board connected to the drive and plugged a SATA connector (that is self-powered) to the drive which had a USB converter on it which I then plugged into my computer. When I did that it did recognize the drive in Disk Utility (not mounted) and it said it had 2.2 TB of data (which is about right) but that it's status was unformatted.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:29 PM
Ultimately if I can't figure it out Israel from Ron Paul Flix has offered to fix it (it's what he does for a living) but that means it will not make in time for Black This Out which sucks cause I'll have to ship it to CO.

eduardo89
10-17-2011, 06:31 PM
ultimately if i can't figure it out israel from ron paul flix has offered to fix it (it's what he does for a living) but that means it will not make in time for black this out which sucks cause i'll have to ship it to co.

noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:31 PM
Do you have another enclosure you could put the drive into? Or another computer to hook it up to? Are you sure your enclosure doesn't have USB, maybe the SATA port on your laptop isn't working?

I did try this. I even tried a program called FileSalvage when I got it recognized in DiskUtility with the SATA connector adapter but the drive would spin down after an hour and not find any files.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:31 PM
bump for dr. jones and good luck! your previous video(s) were superb, and am really looking forward to seeing this one

thanks for the support

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:34 PM
How did you eject the HD the last time it was mounted? Any changes in drivers, OS, or anything like that?

You said you bought a matching drive, correct? What about putting the original 3TB into the new enclosure and trying to mount that?

Edit - also, how old is the drive? Usually if they fail they do right away.

eduardo89
10-17-2011, 06:36 PM
I did try this. I even tried a program called FileSalvage when I got it recognized in DiskUtility with the SATA connector adapter but the drive would spin down after an hour and not find any files.

do you have another computer to plug it into? try it on a windows (i know they suck)

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 06:37 PM
Spinrite ( http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) works on Mac formatted drive but not in a Mac (if you try it on a Mac the mouse and keyboard is not available). If you have a windows PC you can move the harddisk over and it will detect it and run as normal.
Hope that you find a solution.

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:38 PM
do you have another computer to plug it into? try it on a windows (i know they suck)

Good luck getting that to recognize a Mac formatted disc.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:38 PM
How did you eject the HD the last time it was mounted? Any changes in drivers, OS, or anything like that?

You said you bought a matching drive, correct? What about putting the original 3TB into the new enclosure and trying to mount that?

I never dismounted it, I closed my laptop for a few hours to watch some Football on Sunday then opened it up after my Boys lost to the Pats and my FCP project had all those reconnect Media messages, I was like "that's weird, the hard drive dismounted but is still on and spinning." No OS changes in that time period. I did buy matching drive and I tried exactly that. Now that little board connected to the drive had been changed (even though the one that failed was purchased only a few months ago) but wasn't all that different from the original. Ultimately it didn't work.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:40 PM
Spinrite ( http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) works on Mac formatted drive but not in a Mac (if you try it on a Mac the mouse and keyboard is not available). If you have a windows PC you can move the harddisk over and it will detect it and run as normal.
Hope that you find a solution.

Yeah I've tried mounting it to a PC but it didn't recognize it at all. But I don't have a PC at my disposal at the moment anyway.

eduardo89
10-17-2011, 06:41 PM
Good luck getting that to recognize a Mac formatted disc.

see how much windows sucks

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 06:42 PM
Yeah I've tried mounting it to a PC but it didn't recognize it at all. But I don't have a PC at my disposal at the moment anyway.

Spinrite will find it even if it won't mount.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:43 PM
Spinrite will find it even if it won't mount.

k, I'll try that option if everything else fails. Think there's a bit torrent for Spinrite?

PauliticsPolitics
10-17-2011, 06:47 PM
I never dismounted it, I closed my laptop for a few hours to watch some Football on Sunday then opened it up after my Boys lost to the Pats and my FCP project had all those reconnect Media messages, I was like "that's weird, the hard drive dismounted but is still on and spinning." No OS changes in that time period. I did buy matching drive and I tried exactly that. Now that little board connected to the drive had been changed (even though the one that failed was purchased only a few months ago) but wasn't all that different from the original. Ultimately it didn't work.
I assume you already tried turning your computer off, or a hard restart, not just hibernating it, right? I assume you also tried plugging it into a different mac, right?

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 06:49 PM
I assume you already tried turning your computer off, or a hard restart, not just hibernating it, right? I assume you also tried plugging it into a different mac, right?

yes, yes :(

AdamT
10-17-2011, 06:49 PM
Let's try resetting the SMC (systems management controller).

Power down laptop. Remove SATA card from laptop. Disconnect power cord. Remove battery from laptop.

Hold power button down for 10 seconds (with battery removed)

Put battery back in, startup like normal. Insert SATA card into laptop. Try connecting drive.

If you're laptop is a model without a removable battery see http://osxdaily.com/2010/03/24/when-and-how-to-reset-your-mac%E2%80%99s-system-management-controller-smc/

InTradePro
10-17-2011, 06:49 PM
k, I'll try that option if everything else fails. Think there's a bit torrent for Spinrite?

Doubt it, but know little about torrents.

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 07:02 PM
Let's try resetting the SMC (systems management controller).

Power down laptop. Remove SATA card from laptop. Disconnect power cord. Remove battery from laptop.

Hold power button down for 10 seconds (with battery removed)

Put battery back in, startup like normal. Insert SATA card into laptop. Try connecting drive.

If you're laptop is a model without a removable battery see http://osxdaily.com/2010/03/24/when-and-how-to-reset-your-mac%E2%80%99s-system-management-controller-smc/

It is a a laptop model w/o removable battery. The SATA card I have plugged into it is actually a SATA adapter that goes out via USB (so from SATA to USB to the Computer). So would I do the SMC by covering some of the HD pins?

Maybe I should just look up a data recovery place here in NYC. I wonder what the price and turn around time is.

PeacePlan
10-17-2011, 07:04 PM
Doubt it, but know little about torrents.

Found a torrent for it - buy it if it works....

http://btjunkie.org/torrent/SpinRite-6-0-Release-1/3779c30edea9218ee5596b3b8c62a0aecc56767e1047

AdamT
10-17-2011, 07:07 PM
It is a a laptop model w/o removable battery. The SATA card I have plugged into it is actually a SATA adapter that goes out via USB (so from SATA to USB to the Computer). So would I do the SMC by covering some of the HD pins?

Maybe I should just look up a data recovery place here in NYC. I wonder what the price and turn around time is.

Just unplug all the connectors from the laptop and follow the instructions for a non-removable laptop model.

http://osxdaily.com/2010/03/24/when-and-how-to-reset-your-mac%E2%80%99s-system-management-controller-smc/


Reset SMC of a MacBook or MacBook Pro’s with a non-removable internal battery:

* Shutdown your MacBook/Pro
* Connect the power adapter to your Mac
* On the MacBook/Pro’s keyboard, hold down the Shift+Control+Option keys and the Power button at the same time
* Release all keys and the power button at the same time
* Boot your Mac as usual

Next step will be data recovery but it will likely be hundreds. Good luck. I know the feeling. I once had a week's worth of solid work into an edit, which was perfect, and crappy ass Premiere 6.5 (circa 1999 or so) decided it didn't want to open the project anymore. Had to start over from scratch. But not before I smashed a bunch of shit in the office and scared people in the lower level of the building.

eduardo89
10-17-2011, 07:07 PM
Found a torrent for it - buy it if it works....

http://btjunkie.org/torrent/SpinRite-6-0-Release-1/3779c30edea9218ee5596b3b8c62a0aecc56767e1047

found one on pirate bay from a "trusted" uploader

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5431347/Spinrite_V6_(HDD_Repair_tool)

doctor jones
10-17-2011, 07:11 PM
Just unplug all the connectors from the laptop and follow the instructions for a non-removable laptop model.

http://osxdaily.com/2010/03/24/when-and-how-to-reset-your-mac%E2%80%99s-system-management-controller-smc/



Next step will be data recovery but it will likely be hundreds. Good luck. I know the feeling. I once had a week's worth of solid work into an edit, which was perfect, and crappy ass Premiere 6.5 (circa 1999 or so) decided it didn't want to open the project anymore. Had to start over from scratch. But not before I smashed a bunch of shit in the office and scared people in the lower level of the building.

haha that's exactly what I want to do right now. guys I'm heading home from my office, thanks for the help and send me a prayer if you believe in God. I had more on this HD than just Ron Paul stuff, work stuff that's due this week to clients who won't be happy.

iamse7en
10-17-2011, 11:14 PM
I had problems with large external hard drives on my Mac: they wouldn't mount and they'd appear greyed out in disk utility. I used DiskWarrior to rebuild the hard corrupt hard drives. It worked great with no data loss. Not sure if your issues are as minimal as mine were, but I suggest looking into it. Should be able to find a torrent of it.

tribute_13
10-17-2011, 11:40 PM
haha that's exactly what I want to do right now. guys I'm heading home from my office, thanks for the help and send me a prayer if you believe in God. I had more on this HD than just Ron Paul stuff, work stuff that's due this week to clients who won't be happy.

Here's what you do. Download Knoppix. It's a live-CD Operating System that runs off the cd tray. Load up Knoppix, see if your hard drive partition is read by the OS and drag and drop the file to a flash drive. Easy as cake. It's how I recover files from corrupt partitions.

GunnyFreedom
10-17-2011, 11:56 PM
No. Harddisks are designed to work at room temperture 20'C

Actually, I've saved the data from literally dozens of HD's with the freezer trick. This particular case does not sound like one where it will work, but it is a legitimate data recovery procedure. Mostly the freezer trick is when it starts clicking. You ziplock bag the drive, get as much air out of it as possible, and freeze it for half an hour, and then you have about half an hour to recover your data before it craps the bed again.

But you have to know that's the solution because there is an off chance that you will condensate and further damage it.

If you have ultra low humidity you can freeze/recover/freeze/recover all day long.

This case sounds like a corrupted sector zero, and a loss of format data. About the only real solution there is specialized file recovery firms...ones that will pull the platens and to a hard recover if necessary.

THE GOOD NEWS is that a file recovery company should have an easy time of it. Mac files basically remain contiguous, which is why they don't have a fragmentation issue. Contiguous files are WAY easier to recover. (easier to wipe, also)

doctor jones
10-18-2011, 09:23 AM
Actually, I've saved the data from literally dozens of HD's with the freezer trick. This particular case does not sound like one where it will work, but it is a legitimate data recovery procedure. Mostly the freezer trick is when it starts clicking. You ziplock bag the drive, get as much air out of it as possible, and freeze it for half an hour, and then you have about half an hour to recover your data before it craps the bed again.

But you have to know that's the solution because there is an off chance that you will condensate and further damage it.

If you have ultra low humidity you can freeze/recover/freeze/recover all day long.

This case sounds like a corrupted sector zero, and a loss of format data. About the only real solution there is specialized file recovery firms...ones that will pull the platens and to a hard recover if necessary.

THE GOOD NEWS is that a file recovery company should have an easy time of it. Mac files basically remain contiguous, which is why they don't have a fragmentation issue. Contiguous files are WAY easier to recover. (easier to wipe, also)


Thanks for all your suggestions, Israel from Ron Paul Flix who runs a Data Recovery service has offered to fix it. Ultimately we'll see how much we raise tomorrow and then I'll make it a post Black This Out video w/ the amount raised inserted into the video. I love the theme and the 10 minute video (day in the life of Ron Paul durning his September 26th Tri-State area visit) was all edited around Black This Out so I have to roll with it. Can't wait to share the video with you all... hopefully Israel will be successful! Pray for the drive!

LibertasPraesidium
10-18-2011, 10:41 AM
I agree with tribute_13, using Knoppix, I use mint linux, to view hard drives without having a loaded OS. Tells me immediately if the drive is bad.