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[ILikePie]

A friend asked me to take a look at his computer today, and after some messing around with it, I noticed the hard drive was broken (physically). He said he'll get a new one, and that he doesn't really care, but it left me wondering, can you recover a hard drive in such a condition?
I saw the drive and it's partitions under /dev, but I couldn't mount it, nor does "fdisk -l /dev/sda" output anything. His Windows CD said there was no drive connected when we tried to run the recovery console, and the BIOS didn't recognize it either.
So, out of curiosity, is it possible that it's physically broken? And if it is, can it be recovered?

[Tellemurius]

if its physically broken then its a brick, how do you know its damaged?

[Falc]

Yes drives can be physically broken. There's a read/write head that moves about all the time, there's bit of circuit board with stuff on them, ... All of these can break.

The platters could also break, but as far as I can tell, that's a very unlikely scenario. Which means that it should be possible to recover the data, but you'd need specialized tools. For starters, modern drives are made with microscopic precision such that there's usually not enough room for a single speck of dust between the head and the platter. If dust does get inside the drive, it'll most likely lead to scratches on the platter and those do mean lost data.

In short, not something you're likely to be able to do yourself.

[ILikePie]

if its physically broken then its a brick, how do you know its damaged?

It isn't recognized by fdisk, the BIOS, and the Windows CD, and mount says it's not a valid block device.

[Tellemurius]

does it spin when it gets power or when the computer tries to read it?

[Farseer]

You could try slaving it to another hard drive. We got a hard drive that had a broken copy of Windows on it that way.

But, yeah, you haven't really said HOW it doesn't work. =p

[Falc]

Actually, he has.

It isn't recognized by fdisk, the BIOS, and the Windows CD, and mount says it's not a valid block device.

My conclusion: its hardware is broken and only an expensive specialist can recover the data now.

[ILikePie]

That's too bad, thanks guys.

[Virex]

Actually, he has.

It isn't recognized by fdisk, the BIOS, and the Windows CD, and mount says it's not a valid block device.

My conclusion: its hardware is broken and only an expensive specialist can recover the data now.

The interface electronics may be toast too, or the bus it's connected to (though I doubt that). To be sure try putting it in a different slot/computer. If it still doesn't respond you've got yourself a rather expensive frisbee.

[Tellemurius]

brick actually, never been able to toss it like a frisbee as its too heavy.

[eerr]

I'm sure you could take a crack at hard drive repair.

Who knows, could be salvageable by the common man.

[Tellemurius]

you can't really pop open a hard drive, its operating at a vacuum environment inside the shielding.

[Cassicotca]

You should be able to move the platters from one hard drive to another but you would need a cleanroom setup to avoid dust damaging them. Not something your every day geek does so might be better to leave it to experts.

[Tellemurius]

you can't really pop open a hard drive, its operating at a vacuum environment inside the shielding.

did you not read the vacuum part?

[Cassicotca]

There might be air pressure but i really doubt there would be a vacuum in the disks. Having took many disks apart im sure theres not a vacuum inside them. Cant swear on it though.