Long and very frustrating story.... In short my late father whom passed away unexpectedly three years ago was a private accountant. He had dozens of clients and assisted with their personal finances. After his passing, we sold his laptop after removing the hard drive and threw his hard drive in a bin with our other old stored drives. Then about a year ago when spring cleaning, I destroyed/disposed of (what I thought) was the old drive from his accounting laptop, only to just recently realize it was actually another old drive that was from our old desktop PC that has very,very valuable family photos on it spanning several years that we've been meaning to transfer over but never got around to.
In thinking it was my father's old accounting drive with the finance records of dozens and dozens of his old clients, I wanted to make sure nobody could retrieve data on it before disposing, so I did the following (I'm now praying there is a way, somehow, to retrieve data from this drive as it has invaluable family photos and memories and am willing to pay possibly whatever is necessary).....
For reference, the drive is from a 2004 or 2005 Compaq presario pc with I believe a 200gb drive. Single platter drive. Not sure of exact drive make or model of the drive, but that was the computer so perhaps someone on here knows what the drive likely was
-I removed the drive and unscrewed the drive to access the lone, aluminum platter and removed the platter. I used a basic hand held hammer and hammered the top side the platter , while the platter laid on a wooden surface. I probably struck it 10 times at least and possibly upwards of 20+ hits, all to the top side of the platter,if that matters.
It's aluminum so it obviously didn't shatter, but in the end, there were a few areas of noticeable bending of the platter to the point where it's no longer perfectly flat, and there are several (more than a few) tiny dents across portions of the platter on the struck surface. Thinking back, since it's been about a year now, I can't remember exactly what the damage looked like so I'm trying my best to describe. It could be a little better or worse than that description. Finally, after this hammering, having OCD like I do and not wanting it to be sitting in a landfill for some lowlife to discover and try to recover, I disposed of the platter in my backyard pond and threw the drive casing in separately as well. The pond is freshwater and fairly shallow but probably has mud on the bottom where the platter sank to. It's been in there for roughly 8 months. I can retrieve the platter and drive of course, but before I do, I need to know how to handle it so I don't make damage even worse.
My questions are:
is recovery possible?(Again I'm willing to spend a lot and possibly whatever it takes)
I know scratches are bad for platters,but is my case more hopeful since it's seemingly smaller dents and not traditional scratches? Or is this worse?
does it being a single platter drive help or hurt recovery chances? Also I think I only hammered one side/the top side,if this matters as well
is the bending correctable? Seems like it would be possibly able to be flattened but I have no idea.
Does the pond submersion not matter/not negatively affect recovery chances? I read water has essentially no ill effects on data recovery from hdd drives as data is stored magnetically and water has no adverse effects to that. But I guess that's also assuming a platter with no prior damage unlike mine that has several tiny dents and some bending before submerssion. Again, it's only freshwater, but the platter has been in there for 7/8 months and possibly lying on a muddy ground at the bottom.
price range of such recovery and your professional opinion on odds of recovery if willing to spend a lot.
Thank you so much for reading and any advice, apologies for the long post but I've been a wreck lately and beating myself up for mistakingly damaging the wrong drive and now possibly loosing so many invaluable family photos and memories. Even more mad at myself for not backing up the data years ago. Any help is greatly appreciated.
