External drive has had it...where to get if fixed?

[Deserted]

I have about 1tb of content that I can't access anymore. I took it to a small repair shop near where I stay and he said that I'd need to go into the city to somewhere more professional where they deal with data recovery. 

 

Does anyone have any recommendations. How much is it going to cost about? 

[thedemon]

Can you describe the problem. Is the drive recognised by your computer? Is it making any strange noises?

 

Recovery of your data can range from simply rewriting the partition table with a free utility to spending tens of thousands at a professional data recovery company.

 

If getting the data back is important be careful about who you let tamper with the drive. It is easy to make the problem worse. 

[Peterw42]

OP,  as thedemon says, what is the current status, does the external drive power up, lights on and disk spins etc. Does your computer see it etc. Computer sees it but says not formatted etc

 

If there is no lights or motor spin up etc, You could always take apart the device and try the actual HD in a usb to sata caddy/dock/cable. 

 

 

[steve187]

if the hard drive is not detected by windows/your operating system, then as posted remove from case and try connecting direct via a dock etc, a better way would be to connect internally in a pc. if that fails to then connect try using a partition program, but if all this doesn't work then data recovery by other means at a specialist will be expensive.

[Deserted]

52 minutes ago, thedemon said:

Can you describe the problem. Is the drive recognised by your computer? Is it making any strange noises?

 

Recovery of your data can range from simply rewriting the partition table with a free utility to spending tens of thousands at a professional data recovery company.

 

If getting the data back is important be careful about who you let tamper with the drive. It is easy to make the problem worse. 

Light comes on and the disk is spinning but it is not being recognized. I did drop it whilst unpacking and it worked a bit after that but soon packed up.

 

It still comes up 'installing driver software's and I can feel the disk spinning but not fast enough in my opinion and it doesn't show. Its been like that for months and the shop I went to checkex the case. It was fine but when he took the hard drive outof the case and putitin another. It still didnt show. It is spinning and the green light comes on but before it would speed up a lot and a red light would start flickering. Doesn't do that now. It's half working but not being read by the computer it is attached to.

[Deserted]

23 minutes ago, steve187 said:

if the hard drive is not detected by windows/your operating system, then as posted remove from case and try connecting direct via a dock etc, a better way would be to connect internally in a pc. if that fails to then connect try using a partition program, but if all this doesn't work then data recovery by other means at a specialist will be expensive.

We tried that in the shop. I could try with a partition program myself perhaps.

 

When you say expensive, do you mean like 5000 baht and above?

 

 

[Peterw42]

25 minutes ago, Deserted said:

We tried that in the shop. I could try with a partition program myself perhaps.

 

When you say expensive, do you mean like 5000 baht and above?

 

 

You would need to be able to see the drive attached to a computer to run any sort of data recovery/partion program. Unfortunately you are on to the next step which would involve taking the platters out of HD , rebuilding the drive etc. Highly specialised and expensive. These are the guys that get data off a laptop thats been underwater for 6 months etc.

 

I used to send drives for data recovery in Australia, the bill would be 1,000s of dollars.

 

[thedemon]

50 minutes ago, Deserted said:

Light comes on and the disk is spinning but it is not being recognized. I did drop it whilst unpacking and it worked a bit after that but soon packed up.

 

It still comes up 'installing driver software's and I can feel the disk spinning but not fast enough in my opinion and it doesn't show. Its been like that for months and the shop I went to checkex the case. It was fine but when he took the hard drive outof the case and putitin another. It still didnt show. It is spinning and the green light comes on but before it would speed up a lot and a red light would start flickering. Doesn't do that now. It's half working but not being read by the computer it is attached to.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't sound too promising for an easy recovery.

 

I would try connecting the drive to a SATA port rather than USB. Then see if the drive is being identified correctly.

 

If it is, you can try some Linux based utilities. They may be able to read data where Windows can't.

 

If it isn't, then as Peterw42 says, you're probably looking at serious money to go any further.

[johng]

I had an external USB hard drive in enclosure go bad,took it apart

connected directly to SATA port  it didnt seem to spin up and was not recognised by the BIOS

I thought it was totally dead and just about had resigned myself to loosing a lot of important ( to me) data.

But  I took a chance at  having the controller board repaired.

this is attached to the outside of the disc with special Torx screws though I managed to get mine off with a pair of long nosed pliers and lots of swearing ! (not recommended)

 

I sent just this board  to this company  https://www.onepcbsolution.com/smallrepair.html

in Canada...took ages to arrive   but they fixed it  and it got back quickly

put the drive back together and it worked with no loss of data !    excellent  not expensive  worth a try if you have data on it that is important to you.

 

if/when the damaged drive works   have another drive ready and  backup your data immediately to the new drive.

 

 

[jenny2017]

OP< please try another USB cable first. I had the same issue...........

[Deserted]

Yes I have thanks. The disk is spinning but it seems as though its slower than usual. Not sure how to get round this one. 

[dallen52]

You can look at this and see what you think?
It worked for me...

Sometimes the fingers don't sit back on the landing zones.
So the reading cannot actuate.
Especially if a drive is dropped.

Might be able to salvage the data...

Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Deserted]

Thanks

[howto]

Plug the HDD into a desktop

- using a KNOWN GOOD SATA cable.

Start desktop

immediatly go to BIOS settings

see if the HDD is seen

- if yes, recovery is possible

- if no, means circuit board or heads

then consider other options.

 

Considering the "speed issue",

many newer drives use variable speed.

 

There is a HDD repair company in Phuket,

sorry I forget the name.

Perhaps Phuket Data Wizards ?

Others may come along and mention it.

 

If you don't know what your doing,

do nothing as not to muck things up worse.

 

Cheers, good luck, howto.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by howto
add

[howto]

Found it ,,,

Mobile: +66-86-6827277 Grigory Morozov (Greg)
Tel/Fax: +66-76-383575
E-mail: [email protected]

 

Whats wrong with TVF,

slow and 502 bad gateway errors ?

 

Cheers, good luck, howto.