IBM Microdrive falls 16 inches to its death..???

[PhotoMonkey]

I just took some pretty cool unreplaceable photos with my Canon Powershot S20. I took the IBM 340 meg Microdrive out of the camera and was putting it in my computers flash card reader, and I dropped it. It fell maybe 16 inches. I thought nothing of it and continued to put it in and tried to read the pictures. The reader wouldn't recognize the card and my Microdrive started making this very high pitched whizzing sound. I put the Microdrive back in my Canon and tried to read them, and the camera wouldn't recognize it either. But when I took the pictures earlier that day, my camera diplayed the stored images just fine. I came home, dropped the card 16 inches and now it doesn't work. I'm really more concerned about getting my pictures back, more than I am concerned about the Microdrive. It can be replaced. My photos can't. Does anyone know how I can recover these photos?
Thank you very much,
-Tracy Smith

[LaptopPop]

Don't know if this will help - but dpreview.com posted a news article about a company in the UK who will try to get images from damaged media.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0108/01080102imagerecall.asp

Good luck!
-lee-

[deaddybear]

Yes, Image Recall 3 is absolutely the way to go. I got mine at a discount, and I can give you the link, if you'd like to: http://www.deprice.com/imagerecall.htm

[gmitchel]

Sorry to hear about this.

Yes, the IBM and Hitachi Microdrives are known to be very tender. They can be damaged by dropping them to squeezing them tightly.

Cheers,

Mitch

[Avalonthas]

Image recall is not going to do anything as the computer/reader cant recognise the microdrive. In order to use recall3 it must recognise the media and then it recovers images from the device. You need to send the drive away to a specialist who will open her up, repair her, and recover the images.

I agree with above poster, which is why i no longer use a microdrive, even for backup, as it is too unreliable. Its a great little harddrive if u can take care of it, but otherwise stick with CF or SD as they are far more durable.

[Columbus Photo]

Its as if you dropped your computers hard drive. usually it will break the heads inside the drive...causing it to be shot! As the above post mentioned you will only be able to recover the data by sending it to a professional who can repair the drive. this can cost ALOT of money. Sometimes thousands.

[Nic]

I'm glad I did not buy a microdrive!!

[Avalonthas]

microdrives are usless for thoughs who are serious about photography, and not worth the higher risk over CF/SD cards. Sd cards are the best for dropping followed by CF and then microdrive. So u gotta be really careful with a microdrive, and since they are slow (there like a harddrive) its best only to use them as a backup.