Mazak HD has died. Data recovery options?

Threw a "HD not found error" last week but re booted and all was well. Machine is not hearing it now and the HD appears to be toast. Hooked it to aIDE> USB reader and nothing. No vibration or sound, nothing on the PC screen. Looking for a HD recovery service recommendation. Who have you used? And did they recover anything?
Thanks in advance.

Scruffy887 said:

Threw a "HD not found error" last week but re booted and all was well. Machine is not hearing it now and the HD appears to be toast. Hooked it to aIDE> USB reader and nothing. No vibration or sound, nothing on the PC screen. Looking for a HD recovery service recommendation. Who have you used? And did they recover anything?
Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

A number of years ago I did have crucial hard-drive go out on me.


Did have it data recovered. I think what they do initially is to open up the hard drive in a clean room and turn the "platters" by hand while using a very fancy oscilloscope to pick up the relevant recognizable bytes, cylinders and sectors and then when they figure out how and where they can pick up the "thread", they can read most of your files... Via automated means.


The problem may be that to put that data onto a new formatted disk in the way that your machine demands it to be might be a challenge.


I would have thought you'd be in a good / industry/ tech-savy state to find specialists for that.


Can set you back a couple grand depending on what the problem really is, but at least these specialists can tell you whether data can be recovered or whether there is a simpler electronic problem with your hard drive.


I wonder if MAZAK has a service for that ? (stop laughing).

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Data Recovery in Denver, CO - DataTech Labs

^^^ These guys are pretty awesome but I'm sure you can find something closer ?

Simple data recovery may not be what you need, since it needs to be in an obscure format and comply to unknown hardware specs. This is where Linux operating system can help as it can be used to copy a hard drive bit for bit. An old time trick is to freeze hard drive which often will get another couple uses out of bearings in drive.

I would look for specialist to copy your disk, not recover your data. Biggest issue likely be finding an identical (obsolete, used, ready to die) hard drive which your machine will recognize. If it does work, make 2.

Always replace batteries every 4 years. Otherwise data recovery will be needed. Back up everything on a computer with a flash drive copied. I never saved anything on the HD that wasn't backed up every 90 days.

What I need is any experience with HD data recovery. Mazatrol files are really all that are needed. Mazak boots win 95 from a card, not the disk. Card and all other system stuff is a 9. or all ok. Just the M programs. I have all other data. Mitsu will have a new drive here tomorrow with correct version of what machine needs.
This is a drive that worked perfect, then is not spinning at all. Zero, zilch, nada, poof, nothing. Not even a tiny noise when powered up.

Scruffy887 said:

This is a drive that worked perfect, then is not spinning at all. Zero, zilch, nada, poof, nothing. Not even a tiny noise when powered up.

Click to expand...

Sometimes it is the drive electronics rather than the motor that goes out. If so, you can look for another disk of the exact same model. Firmware version and everything.

If you find one, the circuit board on the bottom is easy to swap. If it's the electronics, then it will run again.

Duplicate the disk instantly if not sooner

If the drive itself has data that absolutely must be retrieved, we've used a company called DriveSavers (dot com) located in California. They have data reconstruct services, and if required they can disassemble the drive piece-by-piece and physically recover anything remaining. However if there's physical damage then there's only so much that can be done because the file structure may no longer be stable.

The service costs between $1500-2000. Absolutely not cheap, but if you need to do it then they're a *highly* experienced source for repair.

(not affiliated. just a happy success story!)

Depending on a fault its not hard to do, you can go as far as removing the drives actual platters and putting them into a different drive, soon as you can actually read it you can simply copy it perfectly to another matching drive. Theres std programmes - software out there to do this, its done all day every day. Boots fine, then struggles - then nothing is a common sign of either bearings failing or simply a electrical board fault. The companies that do this all day everyday have vast libraries of donor drives to swap bits too - from. Depending on the drive too there's some known hacks like heating them slightly to free seized bearings by getting the oil film to reform or running them on a slightly higher voltage etc.

Key thing is don't fuck with it, all the data will almost certainly still be on the drive platters and not corrupted at this point, hence get it to one of the experienced recovery places and things will go just fine. If you need it fast explain this, good chance you can have a copied working replacement back with you pretty dang quickly. Size of a typical cnc's memory is not very big at all hence assuming there's no damage to the platters - data and there probably is not with this kinda failure recovery is easy.

Thanks everybody. Big spread in local drive recovery places. Big high class clean room, we take a full 3 days to access problems, yada yada yada with that company. Another one advertised $450.00 to recover mine based upon physical failure.
My last backup was 2014. This machine is used to produce parts for our products so it may take me a day or two to tweak the Mazatrol programs with Griffo Brothers software. There are a lot of them but most have not changed for many years. For sure there will be programs missing for "one of" parts, no big deal there.

I had an Seagate drive fail, called them directly and they had an per G Byte charge. It was not to expensive 300$ or so, for about 100 GiG of data. I don't know if they only work on their own hardware or farm it out.

Slight progress. Removed board and played with the contacts. Put back on and connected to the reader. Now drive makes faint sounds like trying to spin. Still does not show up as a drive on my PC.
And Mitsubishi sent the replacement drive with the wrong software version loaded. No connection to the Floppy. Sent email to copy onto 6 floppies. Sat through that and loaded disks onto drive a launched setup. 640T ?? Nope, lathe software will not work on a mill. Another email, more copying, more loading. Ran setup and it trashed Mazatrol in about 15 seconds.
OK, never said Mazatrol needs to be closed, and not so easy to close because 3 finger salute requires a keyboard. But was able to uninstall mazatrol from the start menu. RE boot. Start Mazatrol and it almost works. Shut it down and re boot. Looks OK. Went to lunch. Still need to load the ladder and a few other items. And will have the failed HD in the hands of a recovery service tomorrow.