A Method to Retrieve Data From a Failing Hard Disk
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Article first published on Aug. 29, 2015.
One of the hard disks on my Desktop PC failed (probably due to heat), the one with all my data which was the Linux /home partition. To make matters worse, after buying a new HDD and installing Fedora Linux, by mistake during the installation process I deleted the main backup of that data which was on the second hard disk!! I could only do a partial retrieval of files from the failed hard disk. The file transfer would begin well but would stop though only 10% finished. I noticed the HDD got very hot in the process.
Because my most important files are also backed up on a laptop PC, I transferred them to my Desktop PC and had enough data to be able to continue my work. I lost about 150 gigabytes of non-essential files, 15 years of photos, hundreds of music MP3 files which totaled 3 gigabytes, my entire Documents folder of 17 years of documents, and other folders and files. None of the data was vitally important for me, but nevertheless I felt bad to suffer such a loss.
The next day just after waking up in the morning, I realized a way to keep the failed hard disk cool by putting it on a plastic bottle of cold water with a wet towel between the bottle and the hard disk to help transfer heat. Glory to God, it worked! I retrieved 100% of my photos and music!!
I bought a 120 gigabyte SDD to use as the root partition for my Linux OS, and used the healthy second HDD for my new /home partition. The boot time of my PC now is less than half what it was before. 🙂
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