I have had to replace my 7 year old Laptop's damaged HD. I had the repairers re-install the old HD into an external DH case. I have managed to retrieve some photos by copying from the old, now external, HD onto my Laptop's new HD and subsequently onto CD. But, a large number of photos in folders on the old HD will not open, copy or move. Unfortunately my laptop uses USB 1 only. Maybe this is an issue? I have successfully copied all text documents without exception, but some photos are refusing to budge. I regularly back up, but this HD failure actually happened as I was preparing to backup files from a recent trip to Central America and it caught me out!

I am not as computer savvy as so many of you are on the forum. I would really welcome your advice on what steps I should take to retrieve these very important photos. Is there anywhere (Bangkok?) I could take the External HD for a professional to extract them? I have already tried the initial repair shop here in Songkhla but they had the same result as I did and, to their credit, they suggested I should seek expert help as they didn’t feel competent to help. I fear I may lose them if I try myself. Any ideas guys?

Cheers Rick, and a Happy New Year to all.

Try Googling "hard disk data recovery"

It will give you some idea of what is available.

Your problems emphasise the need to back up regularly.

I have a full size hd in an external case with USB connection, and back up the laptop disk to that regularly.

Much easier than using DVD's or CD's.

i can retrieve the data, I'm in Pattaya. Happened to me several years ago, I bought a program that will do it. Cost me about $100 bucks. Maybe there are cheaper ones now, but this one really does a good job on all file formats, repartitioned, formatted disks, etc. The hd has to be spinning tho. If it's a physically damaged disks it will probably cost u at least $600 with no guarantee.

If it's not a physical problem Spinrite will more than likely deal with it and get the drive running again.