Thursday, September 07, 2006
well i heard a bit of strange news at work that might interest some people. this whole rumor of shipping me off to some other place, just got alot stronger than rumor this week. while standing around at the desk, i noticed a pile of paper work that was highlighted; reminding myself that no one in the department, save myself, is smart enough to use a highlighter, i decided to leaf through it. turns out its a notice from the dreaded "general office" aka 'G-O' to reharken the Culture of Fear... anyway, the notice is to secure two full time employees from our store for a store setup in Marion, Illinois. Thats not good. Of the 8 departments in the store, there are 9 full time employees, seven from the real departments, one cashier, one customer service. They just sent out the cashier and customer service person for the last store setup. That leaves 2/7 as my odds of having to go. The bottom of the note read; "If two employees are not volunteered, please forward the names of the two you will be sending from the store" and thats reaaally not good. The second part is, it requires 61 hour weeks. Yeah. Im sick of the 41+ hour weeks; I can't imagine the hell that is 61+. Its slated for 3 weeks begining in October. Just a heads up. But this isn't what I was expecting to find.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
so... the question is; what did i do with my sunday off...
the answer is...
maybe work a genious of an art-form on this drive.
i did what any person, who has fewer brain cells than dollar signs but more time on his hands than both combined; would do: i attempted to service my own hard drive.
granted. this is something that only a fool would do. the experts say so. so do the novices. then here i am. what i quickly found out was, yes, you should let the experts do this. regardless. the story...
when the drive crashed on me, i had two reasons for it... heat, and mechanical failure. honestly one was probably induced by the other. but, for heat that meant if i could cool the drive platters long enough to prevent damage, or to keep the internal circuit borad from overheating, i could make it work for a short time. if it was mechanical failure, i was probably going to be pretty well fucked. bearings are packed away, and i didnt really have a way to remove the platter... for that matter, opening the damned thing without a clean environment is ludicrous enough. so. i started inspecting it to get inside.
i realized that this particular drive had anti-tamper screws. something like a torx bit, but it had an odd elevated center portion that wouldnt let a torx bit drop into the screw head far enough. i tried anyhow, and started stripping out the screw. no go. most people would have stopped there. i could have. but with the minimum bid for servicing my drive, WITHOUT clean room time at 478 dollars, i proceed on. to the drill. how else to get those nasty fucking fasteners out? drill them out! again, noting the sensitivity of magnetic physics at work, i opted to stay away from any sort of electric drill and found old faithful; the manual powered hand drill in the garage. after some time to gather focus, i slowly started drilling out the 6 screws on the top half of the case. voila. before opening the drive, i took my last deep breath, sliced the manufacturer security foil label in two, and cracked it. what i found didnt surprise me. the head had parked itself incorrectly or crashed several times against the platter, and the screeching noise i had heard was probably the head dragging across the surface. i still am not sure if the bearings are bad on it as well, but that was a probability too. anyhow. with my surgical kung fu grip, i lifted the head and arm up, and slowly rotated the platter with the tip of a hollowed out plastic ink pen from the outer side edge. it moves! after a quick look at the circuitry in the back, i closed it back up. i crossed my fingers. and i hoped it would work, because i just cost myself a minimum of 1,200 dollars to service my drive now. for better or worse, i went to step two.
i used a few leftover component screws i had lying around to forcible fasten the clamshell together... again, im not worried about the threads mashing, its done for in all realistic expectations. then i did what no one should ever do. i followed some morons instructions from the internet. what do they say? bag it and marinate. moreover, seal it up in a non static bag, with no moisture, and drop it in the freezer for a while. excuse me? yes, exactly that. so i did just that. and i dropped it in the freezer. thinking it over, the possible working theory here is, that the circuitry and bearings overheat during failures, and the deep freeze solution is a way to buy time before they heat up. the question is, how long do you get? no one quite seemed to know the answer. someone suggested to just keep tryin to refreeze it. but thats not a good solution. i knew that the problem with this was simple, if frost forms on the drive, when it thaws, it becomes liquid. its called condensate. its not a good thing for sensitive electronics. its actually an incredibly bad thing. so this was a one off chance to work.
so 2 to 3 hours later.
i note the surface temperature of my drive to be quite cold. so i pluck my bag and run down the stairs to find out. i figure id only have so long before it would warm up, and ambient air temperature would gain a few degrees every second. so i prayed that the bios and windows would load quickly. after its buckled in, and the bios loads, i get a hiccup. the shaking picture. visible static lines on the screen. but then, as im about to cry; it goes blue and WELCOME! yessssss. even though i was booting from a different drive, the disk in question had to have been polled by the bios as it flashed by, or it would have gave me a nasty message... so far, so good. windows loads over into safe mode, as i requested, and with my beautiful array of 256 colors and 960 x 480 sized window, i have the moment of truth. windows + E. the window loads. it studders. then it shows the drive! yes, it shows it! i open the directory and find..... a bunch of horse shit. lots of mangled looking chunk files, with random characters and unknown pixels. but some of it is still good. by some, i mean, about 40%. i furiously start dragging and dropping; anything that looks good i take. im going well for about 10 minutes before the first click happens. im rushing to pull small files first to get more over... then more clicks; but the drive doesnt fail or seize. about 50 minutes later, its making louder clicks and dragging sounds. i take what i have and power it down. after pulling the drive out, i notice it has some condensation on its surface. the very center does feel cool, but underneath its hot, as is the rear of the unit. i think its probably the best ill get out of it, so i leave it on a shelf and reboot to see what i have. and.
a partial success! i have some fucked up data. and i have some intact. no shit. i dunno whether to call myself an idiot or the idiots savant. but some of it IS recovered. ill weed through it soon to know what... but....
of several things i was hurridly searching for; ive come up with:
. a resume copy, somewhat outdated
. several copies of research text i wrote
. some misc templates
. a few mp3s that dont hiccup
. several pictures; including some from matt and kris's wedding, one of my family reunion from last year and 4 years ago, and one of me as a child i had scanned.
all in all. i hope it was worth it. but do what i say... dont EVER DO THIS. seriously. my concern was the money. i should have done the right thing; i should have let it sit, saved money, and in a years time, paid a professional firm to do this the right way. god knows, the data would be all intact and unscrambled from what they would return to me. yes, it would have cost more than 500 dollars; but its what you should do. dont ask me for help doing this on your drive. dont look to me as a prophet, and dont ever try this at home. i managed to ruin a drill bit [i broke one trying to be too precise drilling out holes starting with 3/32's of an inch], and i guarantee ive ruined the drive and added 800 some odd dollars to the cost of any data recovery i might now want performed on the drive. but. you know how i think... i made something work. and maybe that was somewhat worth it.
the answer is...
maybe work a genious of an art-form on this drive.
i did what any person, who has fewer brain cells than dollar signs but more time on his hands than both combined; would do: i attempted to service my own hard drive.
granted. this is something that only a fool would do. the experts say so. so do the novices. then here i am. what i quickly found out was, yes, you should let the experts do this. regardless. the story...
when the drive crashed on me, i had two reasons for it... heat, and mechanical failure. honestly one was probably induced by the other. but, for heat that meant if i could cool the drive platters long enough to prevent damage, or to keep the internal circuit borad from overheating, i could make it work for a short time. if it was mechanical failure, i was probably going to be pretty well fucked. bearings are packed away, and i didnt really have a way to remove the platter... for that matter, opening the damned thing without a clean environment is ludicrous enough. so. i started inspecting it to get inside.
i realized that this particular drive had anti-tamper screws. something like a torx bit, but it had an odd elevated center portion that wouldnt let a torx bit drop into the screw head far enough. i tried anyhow, and started stripping out the screw. no go. most people would have stopped there. i could have. but with the minimum bid for servicing my drive, WITHOUT clean room time at 478 dollars, i proceed on. to the drill. how else to get those nasty fucking fasteners out? drill them out! again, noting the sensitivity of magnetic physics at work, i opted to stay away from any sort of electric drill and found old faithful; the manual powered hand drill in the garage. after some time to gather focus, i slowly started drilling out the 6 screws on the top half of the case. voila. before opening the drive, i took my last deep breath, sliced the manufacturer security foil label in two, and cracked it. what i found didnt surprise me. the head had parked itself incorrectly or crashed several times against the platter, and the screeching noise i had heard was probably the head dragging across the surface. i still am not sure if the bearings are bad on it as well, but that was a probability too. anyhow. with my surgical kung fu grip, i lifted the head and arm up, and slowly rotated the platter with the tip of a hollowed out plastic ink pen from the outer side edge. it moves! after a quick look at the circuitry in the back, i closed it back up. i crossed my fingers. and i hoped it would work, because i just cost myself a minimum of 1,200 dollars to service my drive now. for better or worse, i went to step two.
i used a few leftover component screws i had lying around to forcible fasten the clamshell together... again, im not worried about the threads mashing, its done for in all realistic expectations. then i did what no one should ever do. i followed some morons instructions from the internet. what do they say? bag it and marinate. moreover, seal it up in a non static bag, with no moisture, and drop it in the freezer for a while. excuse me? yes, exactly that. so i did just that. and i dropped it in the freezer. thinking it over, the possible working theory here is, that the circuitry and bearings overheat during failures, and the deep freeze solution is a way to buy time before they heat up. the question is, how long do you get? no one quite seemed to know the answer. someone suggested to just keep tryin to refreeze it. but thats not a good solution. i knew that the problem with this was simple, if frost forms on the drive, when it thaws, it becomes liquid. its called condensate. its not a good thing for sensitive electronics. its actually an incredibly bad thing. so this was a one off chance to work.
so 2 to 3 hours later.
i note the surface temperature of my drive to be quite cold. so i pluck my bag and run down the stairs to find out. i figure id only have so long before it would warm up, and ambient air temperature would gain a few degrees every second. so i prayed that the bios and windows would load quickly. after its buckled in, and the bios loads, i get a hiccup. the shaking picture. visible static lines on the screen. but then, as im about to cry; it goes blue and WELCOME! yessssss. even though i was booting from a different drive, the disk in question had to have been polled by the bios as it flashed by, or it would have gave me a nasty message... so far, so good. windows loads over into safe mode, as i requested, and with my beautiful array of 256 colors and 960 x 480 sized window, i have the moment of truth. windows + E. the window loads. it studders. then it shows the drive! yes, it shows it! i open the directory and find..... a bunch of horse shit. lots of mangled looking chunk files, with random characters and unknown pixels. but some of it is still good. by some, i mean, about 40%. i furiously start dragging and dropping; anything that looks good i take. im going well for about 10 minutes before the first click happens. im rushing to pull small files first to get more over... then more clicks; but the drive doesnt fail or seize. about 50 minutes later, its making louder clicks and dragging sounds. i take what i have and power it down. after pulling the drive out, i notice it has some condensation on its surface. the very center does feel cool, but underneath its hot, as is the rear of the unit. i think its probably the best ill get out of it, so i leave it on a shelf and reboot to see what i have. and.
a partial success! i have some fucked up data. and i have some intact. no shit. i dunno whether to call myself an idiot or the idiots savant. but some of it IS recovered. ill weed through it soon to know what... but....
of several things i was hurridly searching for; ive come up with:
. a resume copy, somewhat outdated
. several copies of research text i wrote
. some misc templates
. a few mp3s that dont hiccup
. several pictures; including some from matt and kris's wedding, one of my family reunion from last year and 4 years ago, and one of me as a child i had scanned.
all in all. i hope it was worth it. but do what i say... dont EVER DO THIS. seriously. my concern was the money. i should have done the right thing; i should have let it sit, saved money, and in a years time, paid a professional firm to do this the right way. god knows, the data would be all intact and unscrambled from what they would return to me. yes, it would have cost more than 500 dollars; but its what you should do. dont ask me for help doing this on your drive. dont look to me as a prophet, and dont ever try this at home. i managed to ruin a drill bit [i broke one trying to be too precise drilling out holes starting with 3/32's of an inch], and i guarantee ive ruined the drive and added 800 some odd dollars to the cost of any data recovery i might now want performed on the drive. but. you know how i think... i made something work. and maybe that was somewhat worth it.
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