FabSwingers.com forum: Arggh! Tech help needed!

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

My back up HDD with several hundred Gig of images has stopped responding!

Is there anyone here who can do repairs, data recovery, or can recommend someone who does?

There are a lot of "private" pics, the kind you don't want PC World techs wanking over.

(Nothing illegal, though).

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By *vbride1963TV/TS
over a year ago

E.K . Glasgow

You'd trust the folk here

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"You'd trust the folk here

Some of them...

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By *ighlander80884Man
over a year ago

Inverness

Try a different cable, worth a try I've seen some cables that work with one drive but not another. Is it completely inaccessible? Does the computer even see it? If it does worth trying a USB hdd recovery programme. Google for one

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By *akedninjaMan
over a year ago

edinburgh

Doh...technology sucks.....I'm a technophobe!hope you get it sorted

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Is the drive USB powered? Occasionally, USB powered drives don't get enough power from the USB port. This seems especially true with laptops for some odd reason... And there are laptops that would run an external drive via USB port only when plugged in... not on battery power.

Also, have you powered everything down and rebooted?

What model is the external drive?

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By *vbride1963TV/TS
over a year ago

E.K . Glasgow

"You'd trust the folk here

Some of them...

Truth is your HDD will fail just a matter of when if you use a back up HDD it will also fail sometime not sure how much more reliable solid state drives are mechanically sound as no moving parts memory corupts and fails too especially mine

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

I have tried 4 different USBs, and as it is a mains powered HDD, 2 different power packs, both by the manufacturer. It's my intention to move to SSD if I can recover any of the data from it, and for backing up my laptop in future.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"Also, have you powered everything down and rebooted?

What model is the external drive?"

Yes, on reboot, it slows the laptop down, and only shows as "Local Disk *"

It's a WD Elements.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Okay Franz, are you hearing a clicking sound, like the drive just can't get going?

A quick Google for the hard drive in the freezer trick and you'll find this.

http://www.thetechmentor.com/posts/put-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer-to-recover-data/

If you dropped it, it could be game over.

There's another option to remove the HD from the casing and connect it to the SATA in a desktop PC. If that worked, you've ruled out a few possible problems.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

It is ticking, but as far as I know, it hasn't been dropped or knocked. There is no SATA connection inside the casing. I have a connector for that already, but it is of no use.

I thought about the freezer trick, but I still reckon there's a bit of urban myth about that!

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Sorry Franz, I'm stumped.

I used to think it was a myth also but a friend of mine is an IT specialist and can't see logically how it works, but it does most of the time.

That said, he'd never advise it professionally.

Hope you get sorted.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Thanks all, I'll keep you posted.

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By *wiftieeMan
over a year ago

near Glasgow

If the hardware related suggestions have failed, try something like Recuva.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Thanks. I'll have a search for it.

The drive is in the freezer ATM, will test it in an hour or so.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

UPDATE:

Neither Recuva, nor the freezer helped.

Back to the drawing board.

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By *heRainManMan
over a year ago

Warrington & Glasgow

You say that it's a "backup drive". Does that mean that you have the originals on another drive? If not, it's a question of what sort of value you place on the contents. It's usually possible to get at least some of the data back, but "professional level" data retrieval is EXPENSIVE! But, there's a piece of software called SpinRite, that has a very good reputation for recovering faulty drives, although I haven't used it myself. It costs $89 (£62ish), are the contents of the drive worth that? The web site (GRC) does say that they offer a refund if you're not satisfied with the software "for any reason", so I presume that you could get a refund if it didn't work on your drive. The software can also be used for preventive drive maintenance. Depending on the amount of damage to the drive, I hear that it can take a long time to run!

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Thanks, I'll check it out.

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By *ary_ArgyllMan
over a year ago

Argyll

But if its really a backup why not just bin the HDD and transfer the files to a new backup?

Or do you mean you've saved the images only on the backup - oops

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