External Harddrive Crash

[soileauj]

I would appreciate if anyone could provide me with a source that can recover photos(about 4,000) from an external harddrive that has decided it won't work. I get a notification on my computer that the hardware is added but no drive indication under "My Computer". I forget the code error I got but I was told that the motor was dead. I called Maxtor and they are willing to do it for a mere $1700. While I would like to recover my pictures, that just seems steep.

Any resource would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[nadtz]

If the motor is actually dead, which would prevent the HD platters from spinning, there is no software to recover from that. For hardware recovery there are companies like ontrack, you can find them and compare services/prices via 'hard drive recovery' or 'data recovery' via Google. I only recommend this approach as there are many data recovery companies out there and though Im personally familiar with ontrack's services, they didnt come cheap. It was also some time ago as I no longer consult and am anal about my personal backups.

[IamKP]

I'm interested in some recommendations as well.

Same thing just happened to me last week.

Lost 3 YEARS of work! EVERYTHING!

I've seen some data recovery companies that will only charge you if they are able to retrieve data.
I wonder how reputable these companies are?

[rklepper]

A good backup plan is the best and cheapest way to ensure this does not happen.

[Snow001]

Dont want to get your hopes up but it is possible that only your hard drive controller has died. You could potentially salvage your data if you physically remove your hard drive and if you're comfortable in doing so, and use one of these (http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Unlimited-USB-2110-Adapter-Cable/dp/B000JJM2GW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1233357539&sr=8-3) to extract the data (depends if your hard dirve is SATA, PATA, etch..they make one for each type). If you know someone who has something similar it might be worth trying.

Sorry for what happened. Hope you get your data back.

[weather_wrangler]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. You might want to look into the "SpinRite" product. I have used it with pretty good success over the years. It's been well worth the $70.00 cost.

SpinRite takes a long time to run (several hours) but it might give you enough usability to copy your photos over to another drive. The interface is a little confusing, but perhaps somebody with DOS type experience could help you along.

Have you tried plugging the drive into another machine, so see it it will "talk" to the drive?

[dan j]

I called Maxtor and they are willing to do it for a mere $1700.
Sorry for your headache but thank you for the information.

I won't be buying Maxtor. $1,700 for a $xxx drive? Highway robbery.

Good luck,
dan

[dima1109]

Try pulling out the drive out of the enclosure and connecting it to a desktop machine to see if it's the drive or the enclosure.

Don't mean to be beating a dead horse, but even DVD is a better backup medium than HDD. For ~$40 you can buy two 100-packs of blank single-layer DVDs that would store almost a terabyte worth of images.

[nadtz]

Ah well, I had assumed the drive was known to be the problem! Never dealt with maxtor support, but there ya go.

As for data recovery costing $1700, you try moving and transferring the platters in a clean room and see how much you decide to charge for it. This is why in these days of huge datasets, backups should be factored into ANYONES setup, even if its just a couple of external USB drives (which is far from ideal).

[eeeksNYC]

True Data recovery as nadtz alludes to above is not cheap. At my job, even with the best of backup schemes (SAN storage, and LTO backups) we often have producers forget to back up certain items. Usually, that's when their local drives decides to take a dump...Drive Savers (www.drivesavers.com) is our go to recovery service. They are NOT cheap, however, if you're drive is truly fragged, not just a busted controller card, then it could be worth the expense.

[gjman]

4,000 pictures is a lot of pics to lose and $1,700 sound about right to professionally recover data (they send it back on HDD with equal capacity as the original)

I hate to say this, but if you guys are serious about your pictures then good back up is NOT an option but rather a REQUIREMENT. Eventually all HDD will fail.

Ideally you want two or three independent media to store all your data. HDD are getting cheap and cheaper and in may instances cheaper than any other can. Those who do take pics professionally often use off-site storage.

Its really not that expensive anymore. The software to backup/sync is actually FREE (MS SyncToy) and are pretty capable. All you need is an expandable storage solution. If you dont want to end up with a clutter of USB drives and power-adapters etc, just get OEM HDD and a HDD dock. Once you backed up your data you can put in back in the ant-static pouch and store it (properly) away for a long time.

[Calicajun]

Just got my external hard drive back at least the pieces from the local computer repair shop. Cost a $180.00 to have the data retrieved plus the cost of a new drive but everything was saved. Of course next time I will have duel backups to be on the save side. Don't want to go through that again, took two weeks before the shop called me to say it was ready to go.

Good luck.

[mutau052]

this happened to me this week, i used data rescue II for mac it worked great, only bad this is it will not recapture your grouping just the pics, i had 20k pics to go through.

[mutau052]

P.S. you can now get an external terabyte for under $150

[MeNiS]

for future reference, the best backup is a backup of your backup. and you'll want to store it at different locations, not under the same roof.

HD prices are affordable nowadays.... 1TB for about $100-$125 .. so there shouldn't be a reason why anyone shouldn't have multiple backups to be safe.

[trailblazer]

If the motor is dead, then software will not fix it. That is like saying, "Hey I saw some sparks from my computer tower and then smoke, what can I download to get it up and running?"
Not quite, but you should get the effect I am after.

I would recommend drivesavers. The company I work for foolishly did not backup some important accounting information and the hard drive was severely damaged in an incident and drivesavers recovered 100% of the data at a steep price.

It depends on how much those 4000 photos are worth to you and unfortunately is a harsh lesson to ensure you keep backups.

[superbeefy]

You wouldn't happen to have a seagate drive by any chance? If you do, it might have been affected by a problem that has occurred recently with the 7200.11 model drives. It might be brought back to life with a simple firmware update. More info can be found here http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

[IamKP]

Backup didn't matter for mine, it was my portable hard drive that died.

Voided the warranty by having a friend check the drive to see if we just needed to replace the outer case, but he said the drive was not spinning at all when he plugged it in with his software.

I've seen some places that don't charge if there's no recovery. Has anyone had any experience with any of these companies.

Website links are great, but would like some feedback from those who have used them in the past.

Thanks!

[SuzyView]

The local computer shop transfers files from bad hard drives to a new one (if you provide the new one) for $60. I can't believe you can't find a deal like that near you.

[Tigershark]

Send me a PM, I own a Data Recovery company and this is what I have been doing for a long time. I would be happy to help out