it took 3 months to download movies and TV series and for no apparent reason none of my computers recognize it when I plug it into my USB ports. I brought it to pantip plaza and they could retrieve the information. any ideas

If it's a solid state hard drive your chances of retrieving the data is next to nil.

There are however, a number of software packages that can retrieve data from corrupt drives or data that has been deleted, provided it hasn't been overwritten. But, the process is very slow.

I suggest that you buy an ide/sata to USB connector, plug in your hard drive and try one of the free software packages as mentioned above.

Have a read of this for some ideas: http://www.thetechmentor.com/posts/how-to-recover-data-from-a-crashed-hard-drive/

You say 'it took 3 months to download movies and TV series'

Then say ' none of my computers recognize it when I plug it into my USB ports'

Do you mean that when you plug in your USB 1TB hard drive you can see the HDD but not the contents? or play the contents?

How did you download all the movies onto the HDD ? in what format ?

Do you have the software installed on your computers that reads the format you downloaded it all in ?

I am no expert by any means, but if the PC at Pantip can play the movies, then would have thought they have a program that reads the files, where as you have not.

Just an idea...... on a movie did you try to RIGHT click and then click on OPEN WITH ? gives you a list ......... or download FREE something like GOM Player, [Plays all formates ]

"I brought it to pantip plaza and they could retrieve the information." Does this mean they can retrieve the data from your external hard drive?

Often, believe it or not, the case can be the problem.

I'll take a guess that none of this copyrighted material was paid for. Som nam na.

the biggest problem is OP cannot even power up the hard disk..

once you can power up the hard disk, you can do all the recovery tricks found on internet..

Some older computers do not have enough USB power per port to power external devices. I.e. older external hard drives used to come with an additional "power" cord that plugs into separate USB port.

Has the OP loaded the driver for the external drive?

OP, if you would be a lot clearer, there wouldn't be all this guessing.

OP, if you would be a lot clearer, there wouldn't be all this guessing.

+1

You say 'it took 3 months to download movies and TV series' Did you download on the computers your using ?

Did you ever play any of these movies and TV series in the 3 months ? to be sure they worked ?..

Please be clear what can you not see ? 'for no apparent reason none of my computers recognize it when I plug it into my USB ports'

The USB Hard drive you cannot see ? the movies and TV series folders ? or the movies and TV series contents do not play?.. [would say something like not recognized when you click on them to play]

Edited May 27, 201313 yr by ignis

Be careful with the guys at Panthip, it would not be the fist time if they just make things much worse and they don't accept any responsibility.

PM me if you want the phone number of a reliable yet inexpensive expert in CM who can solve this for you the professional way.

I'm confused.

"I brought it to pantip plaza and they could retrieve the information"

Do you mean "couldn't"?

It all depends on what the failure is. If it's a mechanical failure you're probably SOL. If it's an electronics failure, chances are a data recovery service could get the data off it by replacing the motherboard with a working one from an identical drive - but that's usually very expensive.

If it's simply got it's partition table or file structure database corrupted by unplugging it at an inopportune moment (especially if you did not have "optimize for quick removal" set) you might have success with a recovery program such as 'getdataback', but you'll need another drive to copy it to.

Drives are so big these days it's unwise to keep only 1 copy of anything you can't easily replace. At about $70 for a 1TB drive it's only costing you $140/TB (and a bit of tedium keeping them in sync) to have your working disk and a copy in a cupboard.

Try putting it in a sealed plastic bag . Place it in the freezer for a few days then take it out and try it . This has worked for me before on dead drives . If it come back up get your data back as quickly as possible

I have all apple equipment. when I went to retrieve a film I plugged in the hard drive and a light came on on the hard drive. I think a yellow light when it had been blue I think. nothing happened. I tried it on my desk top and a message came up saying this computer cannot read this device. three months of best of all categories of movies etc.

I have one like that... LED starts off flashing/purple while it spins up and does it's self diagnostic, then turns blue when it's ready.

If yours isn't getting past yellow, chances are the disk isn't spinning up. Hold it to your ear while it's plugged in (be careful, if your rig isn't earthed you might get a (harmless) belt of "static" off it) does it sound like it's spinning? I suspect not.

You can sometimes get a stuck disk to spin again with a gentle tap but I absolutely wouldn't recommend that unless you have "the engineer's touch"

Edit: put "static" in quotes to avoid the pedant electrician's rants

Edited May 27, 201313 yr by bobl

I have all apple equipment. when I went to retrieve a film I plugged in the hard drive and a light came on on the hard drive. I think a yellow light when it had been blue I think. nothing happened. I tried it on my desk top and a message came up saying this computer cannot read this device. three months of best of all categories of movies etc.

Does the external device show up in your computers System Profiler? If not, it may be a NTFS format conflict. How was this device formatted originally?

Are you able to connect another external device, such as your printer, and have it shown in the System Profiler, mainly to test the USB port.

Are you able to take this storage device and try it on a Windows operated system? That might point you in the right direction to finding a solution.

Often external hard drives are little more than ordinary hard drives mounted inside a plastic box, plugged into a USB interface. I had occasion to remove a drive from an external case, change the jumper pin and mount it inside my tower case and use as an internal drive. It's possible that the power source for the external case is somehow corrupted. This might be a way for you to check.

Often external hard drives are little more than ordinary hard drives mounted inside a plastic box, plugged into a USB interface. I had occasion to remove a drive from an external case, change the jumper pin and mount it inside my tower case and use as an internal drive. It's possible that the power source for the external case is somehow corrupted. This might be a way for you to check.

If it's only 3 months old, opening the case would most probably mean ixnay on the warranty...

But yes, it could also just be the Sata->USB board that's fried. I keep one of these handy for exactly that reason...