[mythtv-users] System Replacement after lightning strike

[Sarah Hayes]

Can't help with the FE/BE stuff, my advice would be a liberal sprinkling 
of Core 2's with 2GB of RAM and lots of HDD's. But the old HDD is 
another story.

If you've another machine attach it to the box either via USB caddy or 
fitting it internally and see if your OS of choice will see the disk 
(depending on the file system you use this might be tricky... I've only 
found Windows ex2/ext3 drivers).  If it reads it and the file system is 
intact grab as much as you can.  If it's all gibberish you could try 
fscking it, or poking around google for "<filesystem> data recovery" for 
pointers.

If the drive makes a clicking noise or sits there waving a finger in the 
air, very gently tap the side of the disk with a screwdriver... it can 
bounce the heads back in to life if they've jammed.  If that doesn't 
work you're left with the freezer trick:  drop the drive in to a 
zip-lock style bag, press out all the air you can and seal it.  Place in 
freezer for an hour or so.  Quickly remove drive, attach to system and 
if it works... recover as much as you can as quickly as you can before 
it warms up.  Repeat until even a frozen drive results in gibberish 
appearing.

If none of that works, you are either looking at finding an identical 
unit and swapping the PCB over... or using somewhere like OnTrack to do 
a full on recovery... which will require you to apply lots of lube with 
the prices they charge :)  Still if the data is that important it's 
worth the price.