My portable hard drives finally given up the ghost !!!!!!big sigh. whats it gonna cost me to recover approx' 80 gb's of pictures,,,,,,,,,,<deleted>,,,,

and any recommendations on who. Oh I'm based in bangkok.

cheers all

Always keep a backup, somewhere else.

Sorry mate

Maybe have a search through this sub-forum as this topic has come up quite a few times. I remember some recommendations for utilities you might try, and some data recovery services.

What is it doing exactly ?

If you plug it into the computer and it's not showing up there is a chance it is the enclosure box it is in rather than the HDD itself. Enclosure boxes are pretty cheap so I would try a swap first.

Are you using a Windows system?

Sometimes drives 'fail' and are unaccessable to Windows, but perfectly fine on Linux.......

Maybe have a search through this sub-forum as this topic has come up quite a few times. I remember some recommendations for utilities you might try, and some data recovery services.

Some recent info here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/529176-oh-the-horror/page__hl__horror__fromsearch__1

Gregory at Phuket Data Wizards is the man to see/call. Has his own clean box and really knows HDDs. Can do the same as best in USA, is far cheaper, lives in Phuket.

Those portable hard drives are not that expensive. I have two of them, an Acer and a Western Digital. One I use to back up all my documents, books and pictures. The other contains a complete full backup. If one or the other should fail, I still have the important things. The WD is a USB 3 so it is faster. I use that one for the full backup.

Yes, as Spoonman says, try the drive in another enclosure first.

And, although considered voodoo magic by some, freezing a drive sometimes will allow removing data. Of course, this is with a drive that has mechanical problems and not electronic.

Are you using Windows, Mac, or LInux?

I had a Buffalo 500GB fail on me, it was the enclosure and not the drive that was the problem.

New enclosure a couple of hundred Baht, all sorted.

thanks for the replies , im using windows seven on netbook and on the laptop I'm using vista

I plug the hard drive in and it lights up., sort of makes a v quite whirring noise and sounds like itds trying to work activate

ive googled it and the looked for it in var' places on the comp , dont ask me where cos once the instructions arnt in front of me i'm lost,

and its there but not sort of working, Ive sort of deduced from that the chances a its more than likely knackered

will look into that gateway thing and what u reckon, is it worth trying to freeze it b4 i fork out for data recovery?

oh and probably stupid questions how long should i freeze it for and use/plug it in when its still frozen

cheers

rijit,

Freezing it will only cost a little time to try. Nothing carved in stone about this. Put it in a plastic bag and in the freezer for a couple of days. Take it out and put it in the enclosure. Wrap a towell around the enclosure to reduce condensation. Look toward the East and mutter an incantation or two. And, turn it on.

What you're hoping for is that the tolerances while cold will allow the head to read the platters. But, as the drive warms up then the tolerances can get sloppy again.

If the freezing fails, and you truly want to recovery what data you can, then the next step is to have someone remove the platters from your hard drive and mount and drive them on another suspension. Which can be expensive.

Best wishes.

if you sure it is not the hardware failure, enclosure dead, then this company may help on data recovery :

http://maxwelldatarecovery.com/page13.php

they are the official data decovery for La Cie harddrive.

rijit,

Freezing it will only cost a little time to try. Nothing carved in stone about this. Put it in a plastic bag and in the freezer for a couple of days. Take it out and put it in the enclosure. Wrap a towell around the enclosure to reduce condensation. Look toward the East and mutter an incantation or two. And, turn it on.

What you're hoping for is that the tolerances while cold will allow the head to read the platters. But, as the drive warms up then the tolerances can get sloppy again.

If the freezing fails, and you truly want to recovery what data you can, then the next step is to have someone remove the platters from your hard drive and mount and drive them on another suspension. Which can be expensive.

Best wishes.

Sorry for the time delay , but ive got to sort it now,,,, well ish !!

In idiot terms do

1/ put it in a plastic bag in the freezer

2/ u say then take it out and put it bac in the enclosure ?

is the enclosure the plastic casing ?

Its a western digital seems though there's no screws on the cover so it feels like I have to break it?

scuze my total ignorance!!

thanks for the replies , im using windows seven on netbook and on the laptop I'm using vista

I plug the hard drive in and it lights up., sort of makes a v quite whirring noise and sounds like itds trying to work activate

ive googled it and the looked for it in var' places on the comp , dont ask me where cos once the instructions arnt in front of me i'm lost,

and its there but not sort of working, Ive sort of deduced from that the chances a its more than likely knackered

will look into that gateway thing and what u reckon, is it worth trying to freeze it b4 i fork out for data recovery?

oh and probably stupid questions how long should i freeze it for and use/plug it in when its still frozen

cheers

Sounds like it could be a power supply issue?

Same thing happens plugging my external drive into my notebook but it works fine in the wife's.

Have you tried it in different computers?

Cryogenics applied to computer repair! Gotta love it!

OP: three things involved:

the hard drive itself

the case the hard drive is in

the USB connection between the case and your computer.

The first two have already been mentioned. I have had trouble with external USB drives that turned out to be a problem with the connection, either something went bad with the cable or with the USB socket connections themselves. Sometimes the problems are solved by changing the USB socket, or failing that the cable. I recently bought a new cable (50b) and all my external drive problems disappeared.