I dropped a Seagate external drive and now it doesn't show up when I plug it into my computer, so I'm asking if anyone knows of any reliable data recovery businesses in Chiang Mai they have had positive experiences with?

Hi,

 

Hmmm, can you feel it powering on, placing your hand on it ? Can you try to plug it onto another computer , other system (Linux box will tell you a lot in the logs just by plug-in it ) ? ... this to be just to be sure the drive is OFF / without power.

 

Data recovery is only possible of your disk is powered. If this is the case, just plug it in any Linux box, and normally you will be able to access your data. Without power, I think only Seagate can fix it without loosing your data ... normally. If this is electronic power inside, this should be possible, but this can be long.

 

DO NOT GIVE your drive to any shop you don't trust, they are fast to "reformat" and reinstall a windows copy to make you "happy" !

 

Hope this helps

 

Ph.

 

PS : if this is a SSD drive, this can be more tricky ....

If this is a business disk, i.e. very valuable data that you really need, there is a service in Bangkok that can do it for you, but it costs a few hundred dollars. The literally rebuild the drive putting the platters in a new case in a 'clean room.'  However, if it isn't quite so valuable, you may want to try just freeing up the read/write head yourself and see if that gets you anywhere. All that takes is a Torx driver and ten minutes time. I've done that in the past with good results. Just remember that the platters spin counter-clockwise. Don't trust the drive for future use. If Windows recognizes it, copy off as much info as possible, then open it up again and trash the platters before throwing it away.