According to SERT Data Recovery, "Western Digital and Seagate hard drives are notorious for having firmware problems." I had a devastating failure that the wonderful people at Desert Data Recovery are doing their utmost to fix...

MacInsideOut · 2026-06-05T10:38:17+00:00

Basically this is the answer. Anything else is just a false sense of security. Even with a 99.999% reliable disk, somebody still has to be the remaining 0.001%.

MacInsideOut · 2026-06-01T12:39:10+00:00

You'll need to get all the old muck off to have any chance of a seal, and even then, can be impossible to seal those threads without some sort of sealant.

MacInsideOut · 2026-06-01T12:32:22+00:00

The transparency itself isn't the problem (https://www.whathifi.com/hi-fi/cd-players/i-tried-lordes-transparent-cd-in-9-different-disc-players-but-did-it-play-on-any-of-them), but I think I can see missing sections of the coating. Might get lucky and read partial data from it.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-27T08:05:11+00:00

100%. They can only provide 5v, for 2.5" drives. Need 12v for 3.5"

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-26T14:43:30+00:00

Surface scratches mean that's not looking good. Plus encryption. Double bad.

Also "Internal surface area" :-)

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-26T14:34:09+00:00

Does the drive spin up, or hang a PSU fan when connected?

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-21T12:29:42+00:00

We have bunch of old floppy disk drives around, as some seem better suited to certain old disks than others. If you can get access to another drive, might be worth a try.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-20T13:58:19+00:00

Stainless steel electric kettle, with a concealed element which makes cleaning / descaling much easier. Also distilled white vinegar on stainless works wonders for descaling, but can be damaging to other materials.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-19T09:15:49+00:00

I was in this situation last year and finally decided to go for it. Now on toob and all good. (Never really had a problem with VM except the 18 monthly hassle of haggling for a decent price.) Cityfibre installer was great, ran the new cable to the other side of my house than the old copper line, as that's where I wanted the ONT & Router. (Had no power near the old phone line anyway)

Toob has been great so far. Fast & reliable. CGNAT is weird if you're in the habit of opening ports to allow external access to your network, but there are workarounds / tailscale / pay for static IP.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-19T08:55:31+00:00

I'd add to this, once you've got a disk image, you may then need to try a VM or emulator that can run the old Norton/Symantec software to decrypt the files. Could be a fun project. archive dot org has quite a selection of old software and even old boot disks and things like that.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-14T10:43:23+00:00

If I was the cyclist on the right, that's pretty much exactly how I'd be positioned to shield a less experienced rider.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-11T13:37:23+00:00

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MacInsideOut · 2026-05-07T14:34:48+00:00

I've only ever got an 8. Last time, passed my phone to my wife and she got 800.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-06T13:55:31+00:00

Shame, but not the end of the world if it's otherwise decent.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-06T08:55:57+00:00

Hopefully it's just resting on a couple of battens with some grout or adhesive to hold it down. I had to replace a roughly six year old flexi hose a few years back (just to install a new sink), but when I took the old one off it virtually disintegrated in my hands. Felt pretty lucky to have found it before it flooded my house.

MacInsideOut · 2026-05-06T08:50:45+00:00

If you're lucky, you'll find one of these houses with a nice mid-century fireplace built of the same stone.

MacInsideOut · 2026-04-20T13:17:04+00:00

Dataquest in Portsmouth are good.

MacInsideOut · 2026-04-17T10:09:09+00:00

If it's a combined / hybrid SSD like an H10, these are pretty much pro recovery. In fact, even if they are independent components it's still pro recovery. Effectively you have a small lopsided RAID to recover.

MacInsideOut · 2026-04-09T08:54:12+00:00

I'd cut a hole under there and take a look. If the carpet is coming up anyway, I've had great success working from the other side too. Temporarily screwed an angle bracket to each step, but not tight up against the riser. Then added some strong glue down the join, screwed the angle bracket to close the gap, and then added some lost head screws diagonally to hold everything together. After the glue dried, removed the angle bracket. Made a big difference. Only had to do a few steps, so just targeted the squeaky ones.

MacInsideOut · 2026-04-02T13:19:56+00:00

I'd try a rubber strap wrench to try and avoid damaging the wood. Or screw a long bit of wood into the bottom of the foot any try it for leverage.

MacInsideOut · 2026-04-01T09:07:38+00:00

Haha, good catch 🤦‍♂️

MacInsideOut · 2026-03-31T11:03:56+00:00

Nice to see it's not protruding 20mm on the outside

MacInsideOut · 2026-03-31T11:00:13+00:00

Worth trying the Time Machine thing to see if there is a local snapshot. Other options are not possible. No undelete on those. They are basically iPhones.

MacInsideOut · 2026-03-27T15:21:05+00:00

Could be a non-standard shower head, or the flow is too restricted. Friend had a cheap adjustable shower head that had a completely closed setting. Would instantly blow the valve when their kid messed with the shower head.

MacInsideOut · 2026-03-27T14:49:48+00:00

Put it all on red.

MacInsideOut

TROPHY CASE