Illegal computer files

[Lichen]

Greetings,

Before I begin. please delete this thread if it is believed to encroach on 'synth talk'.

This annoying thing happened the other day where I dropped my external hardrive (while it was currently on) and now makes this horrid clicking noise. I'm not asking for technical advice - the problem is that that this hardrive contained everything personal and valuable to me - literally a digital backup of my life. This was my backup drive of everything I had, from after recovering a previous faulty hardrive.

As an amateur drug researcher - it also contained various chemical synth guides/recipes and extraction teks and a lot of different drug research stuff I've gathered over the years. It's valuable to me, sure, but not invaluable - it's nothing I couldn't redownload if I wanted.

I know my only real option to fix the drive is to send it away to a data-recovery company. This is super expensive, but I really don't mind paying the extortionate cost to get my stuff back. However, I am concerned about all the substance synth information. I don't do any chemistry, and never have - I just downloaded them as curiosities, this stuff is damn interesting even if I don't really understand it.

Is it at all likely that I could get "dobbed in"?
Are files such as these even illegal to have in possession?
Jeeze, I even have digital copies of PIHKAL and TIHKAL, how concerned should I be?

The more I think about it, the more it seems like I don't really have any option but to send it away for recovery. Every photo from the past 10 years is on there, the book I was writing, the film I made a few years ago - everything.

 

[obliguhl]

I doubt they could do anything to you for finding scientific information on your harddrive. It's not illegal as far as i know. You could be a scientist afterall. I guess if they'd find "How to make explosives" they'd be tempted to call homeland security though...or illegal porn.

Wishing you all the best with your HD problem. I hope they'll be able to recover a lot of the data. I can feel how you are hurting right now.

 

[cyb]

Hey Lichen
Before you go down the route of expensive data-recovery. (and yes, the clicking is a symptom of a dying drive...most likely a power issue...ie. not enough power to run the startup sequence (damaged circuit board))

Try to find a drive that is the 'exact' duplicate...and by that I mean the same make/model/similar serial number.

If you can find one you will be able (with some great care) to remove the plates from inside the dying one and move them to the duplicate. Or maybe simply swapping the circuit board. (see youtube vids for an idea on how to do this.)

If you go to data-recovery (this is essentially what they do) I highly doubt that your data will be read by the technician...his job is to repair the mechanism/board or transfer the discs to a working drive housing...or if the discs are readable...a computer is just left to run and transfer the data.
I wouldn't be too worried imo. :thumb_up:

 

[Lichen]

obliguhl:

Yeah, situation does suck - not sure if PIHKAL and TIHKAL could be considered 'scientific' - although they definately are - and the other synth files I have are far less reputable, all psuedononymous-amateur-cook-straight-off-the-net type stuff. Not exactly, peer-reviewed scientific journal material.

cyb:

Funny you say that, I bought two of these hard drives at the same time. The first one contained everything, but then files began to become corrupted, I started backing them up on to the second hard drive.

During this process, the circuit board for the first one died (awful luck right, need I mention that I sent yet another hard drive off for recovery about 5 years back <cost me nearly a $1000>) so I swapped the circuit board over from the second one. So then I had to start transfering the files onto my PC's comparitively tiny internal hard drive in batch increments, then swap the circuit boards again in order to transfer the files onto working hard drive, essentially using the pc as a kind of piss-weak middleman.

All this took a long time, but I got it all done eventually. It was at this point I dropped the hard drive; it literally slipped out of my fingers for no reason at all during a brief moment of absolute care. It fell maybe less than 30 cms onto a wooden floor, fall perfectly flat and flush to the ground.

It wasn't even within it's casing - just the bare hard drive, with the circuit board sticking in the end of it with cables attached to that. The circuit board probably would not have even have touched the ground, which leads me to think it's more likely a problem with the plates/platters.

I read somewhere that it only takes the tiniest flake of metal to come off inside the hard drive to cause serious malfunction. I've also read that at these data-recovery places, they take the drive apart in a vacuum environment as the tiniest speck of dust, even a particle of smoke, is enough to compromise the recovery - although this could be marketing/propaganda. What do you think?

I too think that it's unlikely the technician would be scrutinising the files on received hard drives, but maybe I'm just being optimistic - one can't be too cautious when it comes to law enforcement, and I want nothing to do with them.

 

[cyb]

I read somewhere that it only takes the tiniest flake of metal to come off inside the hard drive to cause serious malfunction. I've also read that at these data-recovery places, they take the drive apart in a vacuum environment as the tiniest speck of dust, even a particle of smoke, is enough to compromise the recovery - although this could be marketing/propaganda. What do you think?

It is certainly true that the data peeps use 'clean rooms' to work in although I think this is only necessary to ensure their business is not compromised by 'accidental' contamination.
Dust can be an issue but the whole process can be performed with your hands in a plastic bag to keep out particles if necessary. (I've seen it done just on a desk with no precautions and been fine)
From what you describe it sounds as if the fall may have bounced the read heads off the platters...if they were in the 'start' position on the platters...then the magnetic data would have been damaged and the startup routine would not run.
Your data is safe on the platters...the problem is how to read/retrieve it.
(been there many times...horrid feeling) Good luck.
Just remember though...you got this info once...you can get it again...just takes a bit of time.

 

[Lichen]

Thanks cyb, you the man!

I would do this platter swap in a heartbeat, I love to tinker around with things, but I think I should practice it first with an expendable hard drive with non-essential data.

I would bite my bottom lip off cringing if I were to make matters worse for myself, just to save money for priceless data - but I don't want to make matters worse for myself by offending the law. Tricky tricky tricky.

 

[Hieronymous]

I'd want to enter into a written agreement (written by me) before I outsourced any data recovery operation. I have seen people prosecuted for the contents of their hard drive, so it's a serious matter.

It sounds like you could need to try something like Cyb suggested if the boot sector is damaged and it is failing upon reading the MBR. It may not be the case though, often the drive can be read and data recovered with simple unix tools such as dd (data dump). There are also windows tools that will do a data dump too like data rescue etc.

If you can hear it running and making noises, maybe it can be recovered with software. If you can get the drive into another PC you might be able to save the data quite easily.

 

[Felnik]

I had a hard drive fail on me and it turned out to be the
power supply . Got an external HD box from other world computing
and popped in the drive and it works to this day.
Might try putting the drive in external hard drive box
first .

 

[Ufostrahlen]

What do the S.M.A.R.T. self-tests say?

Smart - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Clicking sounds aren't horrible per se. As long as the self-tests run smoothly, I wouldn't worry and duplicate the HDD on a second one. Ubuntu has an in-built self-test you can run when you open the disk utilities. Also basic S.M.A.R.T. tests will run when the BIOS boots. Not necessarily, but you can activate those.

Edit:
I see that Smartmontools runs with all OSs, you can give that a shot:

Smartmontools - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit2:

HDD buyer's guide:

What Hard Drive Should I Buy?

My last two blog posts were about expected drive lifetimes and drive reliability. These posts were an outgrowth of the careful work that we've done at Backblaze to find the most cost-effective disk drives. Running a truly unlimited online backup service for only $5 per month means our cloud...

blog.backblaze.com

 

[Lichen]

Hi Hieronymous::
Are you a Bosch fan? I love Hieronymous Bosch. A dream became reality when I stood before The Garden of Earthly Delights in (the) Del Prado in Madrid.

I think a written agreement is a wise move, but I also think that it could be a red-flag and draw more attention to the files. I don't want to be on the backfoot having to defend myself in a court, I want nothing to do with the law, regardless of how good my defense is. The more I think about outsourcing, the more it's looking like a last resort option.

Felnik:
Also a good idea, I'd be mad not to put it in a new case before trying anything more elaborate - I hope this is all it takes.

Ufostrahlen:
Thanks for letting me know about about S.M.A.R.T and the HDD buyers guide - I'd never heard of SMART before, and wish I had heard about it sooner. I'll be sure to pour through that guide for my next purchase.

I should have mentioned before that the sound the hard drive makes is not just clicking. Basically when I turn it on, I hear the plate begin to spin and increase in speed but it sounds much different now. Sounds as if the plate is spinning against something - grinding is too a strong word to use - but that's more or less how it sounds


I have a flashdrive running TAILS - which is based on Debian GNU/Linux and it has Disk Utility.

I plugged in my hard drive and turned it on. It didn't appear in my Computer directory. But when I went into Disk Utility I could see it (but can't access it).

The SMART status was 'Healthy'.

I tried to run the 3 tests - short, extended and conveyance - but they didn't do anything. The drive would start whirring away but not testing was done, and 'testing' would stop after 20 seconds or so with no results displayed.

I want to try plugging it into directly to my pc, internally, but it's an IDE drive - the other internal hard drives on my pc are SATA. I don't think my motherboard has an IDE slot.

 

[Ufostrahlen]

The SMART status was 'Healthy'.

Good sign...

I tried to run the 3 tests - short, extended and conveyance - but they didn't do anything. The drive would start whirring away but not testing was done, and 'testing' would stop after 20 seconds or so with no results displayed.

I want to try plugging it into directly to my pc, internally, but it's an IDE drive - the other internal hard drives on my pc are SATA. I don't think my motherboard has an IDE slot.

You should try that. Look up the model name of your MB at the boot sequence and google it. (mine has an IDE socket, as well as SATA 6GB/s ones, ~2 1/2 years old) Then get GSmartControl, the GUI version of Smartmontools for Win, OSX and Linux:

GSmartControl für Mac, Linux & Windows - kostenloser Download

GSmartControl ist eine grafische Benutzeroberfläche für smartctl (aus dem smartmontools-Paket), ein Werkzeug zum Abfragen und Steuern von SMART-Daten (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) auf modernen Festplatten und Solid-State-Laufwerken. Es ermöglicht Ihnen, die SMART-Daten...

gsmartcontrol.berlios.de

It has everything you need to check the health of your disk. Hope you succeed!

 

[Hieronymous]

Hi Hieronymous::
Are you a Bosch fan? I love Hieronymous Bosch. A dream became reality when I stood before The Garden of Earthly Delights in (the) Del Prado in Madrid.

Yeah I've always loved his work, I'd love to see The Garden of Earthly Delights myself one day too. I could stare at that (and some of his other Triptych works) for hours.

 

[Lichen]

I meant to say my hard drive is SATA and my mobo only has IDE. I'm buying a sata/ide converter which I can attach to the harddrive and simply plug ito my mobo with the existing cables, but it's not going to arrive for a few weeks.

Thanks for more great advice,

 

[Lichen]

An update:

I paid $3000 and sent my hard drive away. They got back to me a month later and said the platters were too scratched and it was impossible to recover. They didn't even send me the disk back!

Good news is, due to their 'no data-no charge policy' they refunded me. Bad news is, they still charged me for the time they worked on it, so I think I lost a few hundred dollars

However, I still felt like I had a chance. I still had the original faulty hard drive, and I figured that if I could fix this one, I might stand a chance at getting at least some of my stuff back. It was now of extreme importance to me to get my stuff back as my closest friend had just passed away and there were many original copies of photos and videos of him and our friendship together, presumably still on this broken hard drive.

I ended up learning a lot about hard drive recovery, and learned all sorts about using linux and command lines and the whole thing was very daunting.

When I was finally ready, I hooked it all up - booted up the computer and just for kicks and giggles ran 'test disk' during bootup.

It ended up bringing the dead hard drive out of its RAW state and back to life!

Still no files on it though. So I used "Piriform Recuva" - and boom, there they were almost completely untouched.

I got all my stuff back, every last file, with the exception of very large gigabyte files - which is fine as they were mostly movies which I can just download anytime.

Also, my suspicions were confirmed after looking at some of my drug-related files; there were synth guides on there for things like LSD and MDMA and I think I was treading a very fine line by sending it away.

Lesson for everyone - back up, back up, back up!

And never, under any circumstances, keep confidential or incriminating files on the same drive as any files you may one day be sending off for a recovery.

 

[obliguhl]

I got all my stuff back, every last file, with the exception of very large gigabyte files - which is fine as they were mostly movies which I can just download anytime.

Man, i don't know what to say, but that's really amazing
Happy this took such an unexpected yet positive turn and you get to remember your friend in more detail....

 

[Macre]

Good work man. If you can get hold of some decent imaging software (Paragon, Ghost etc) then you can take periodic full images of your system, as well as file-level backups to an external media. This should give you a decent belt and braces backup.

Peace

Macre

 

[universecannon]

Glad you got it back!

...This really makes me want to back everything up again, just to be safe

 

[1ce]

At the very very worst they might get a search warrant, pr watch your online orders. If there is nothing copious about the file name, then you're probably A-OK.

Forensic recovery is something I specialize in (licensed since I was 16). If you need you can absolutely send me a PM.

 

[1ce]

Good work man. If you can get hold of some decent imaging software (Paragon, Ghost etc) then you can take periodic full images of your system, as well as file-level backups to an external media. This should give you a decent belt and braces backup.

Peace

Macre

Heh, Needless and expensive. I've always used dd and mdconfig.

 

[Lichen]

Yeah I am very stoked about getting it all back, after losing two close friends in the last 3 years, the idea of losing all my data as well was just about too much for me. I had pretty much every digital photo I'd ever taken from the last 10+ years, the original copy of a feature-length movie my friends and I made during our teen years (which is somewhat of a historical archive of our lives at the time), all my travel photos from the two years I spent overseas and every scrap of personal writing I've ever written - much of it, I transposed onto the computer from handwritten notes and phone notes I no longer have. So heads up to everyone - when it's gone, it's gone; and getting it back has given me the feeling I have literally raised something from the dead (morbid metaphor, I know).

Good to have you around 1ce, I'll be sure to contact you if I have any trouble in the future; learning how to use gnu ddrescue was a time consuming and stressful ordeal for me -at least in the end at I learned something about it.

I appreciate everyone's support.