extra hard-drive has died - help

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Midsummer

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Hi - can anyone offer advice ?

I bought a 500GB hard-drive from pixmania.com about 3 months ago and last night it wouldn't connect to the laptop - it was making a clicking noise and no E: drive shows up on the explorer. This is a disaster as it happened only one day after I transferred ALL of my photos/videos from the laptop to it and deleted them from the laptop... Tried it again this morning - same thing - it's completely broken.

I suspect it was because it was still plugged into the laptop when it was shut down incorrectly (not by me ! :rolleyes:)

I've looked on the pixmania site and I can send it for repair etc. but how do I know if they can save all my files ? Would I be better off sending it to a company who can retrieve the files and just take the loss on the cost of the hard-drive ? The photos are much more precious than the actual hardware of course...

Any advice appreciated...
 
There are several existing threads on the topic of recovering data from failing hard drives which you should be able to find by searching.
 
Perhaps before you do any more try undeleting them from the laptop. Or at least bring the laptop somewhere where they can do an undelete. Might be easier than getting the data off the external which sounds like its died tbh. Why on earth do you not keep more than one copy, at all times?
 
Midsummer said:
I suspect it was because it was still plugged into the laptop when it was shut down incorrectly
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If the 500gb hard drive is the 500 gb LaCie model it won’t be recognized unless it is removed from the system using the ‘Safely remove hardware’ icon. The disk itself is probably not broken. Try connecting it to another computer, and if it is recognised, safely remove it.
 
Perhaps before you do any more try undeleting them from the laptop.
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Any idea how to do this ? They're not in the recycle bin anymore (the few that were I reinstalled).

Why on earth do you not keep more than one copy, at all times?
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Because my laptop won't copy to CD anymore and is v. low on memory.

PMU - it's a freecom model and windows is able to shut it down just not access it - I'll take your advice though on another PC. Thanks.
 
Midsummer said:
Any idea how to do this ? They're not in the recycle bin anymore (the few that were I reinstalled).
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Using an undelete utility perhaps? As above search for previous posts on undeleting files. However I would be inclined to make no changes to the drive contents until you can ascertain the status of the drive as doing so may destroy data that you need to recover.
Because my laptop won't copy to CD anymore and is v. low on memory.
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You mean low on disk space?
 
You mean low on disk space?
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I probably do though the error messages say low memory.

I've just had a look at www.datarecovery.ie and I think I'll send the hard-drive to them - seems like the best chance of retrieving the files even though I'll no doubt lose my warranty. I think this happened because of a power surge (though it was prob left on all night) and sounds like a "head-crash" from the description on their website...
 
When you delete files they don't actually get deleted, they just get marked as deleted and that space on the disk can be overwritten. Even though you can't undelete them in Windows, there are tools, that can retrieve all these undeleted files. We did in on a drive at work and it recovers everything, including stuff you thought you deleted years ago. So its a jumble of files you have to resort. However if you use the disk before using the recovery tools, you may overwrite these files. So you need to stop using it and do a recovery on it as soon as possible. Theres lots of stuff on the web about recovering files. If you don't want to do it yourself then your going to have pay. I'll try and find out the name of the software we used.
 
Midsummer said:
I've just had a look at www.datarecovery.ie and I think I'll send the hard-drive to them - seems like the best chance of retrieving the files even though I'll no doubt lose my warranty.
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Wow! €95 for an initial assessment with the full costs of any further service to follow! :eek: I don't see how attempts to recover data will affect your warranty.
 
well I'm hoping it's straight forward enough and I really need it retrieved. If I send it back to the place I bought it I'm sure they're under no onus to retrieve the files for the repair.

Do you know of anywhere cheaper ?
 
Midsummer said:
If I send it back to the place I bought it I'm sure they're under no onus to retrieve the files for the repair.
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No - the retailer or manufacturer will certainly not try to recover data for you. At best they will just send you a new drive/unit.
Do you know of anywhere cheaper ?
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Nope. I'd do this myself if I needed to.
 
The same thing happened to me yesterday, although my hard drive kinda fell. I sopke to the data recovery people. I was told that it could be anywhere from 200-600 to get the data of the drive!!! Depending on the amount of damge done. After the evaluation they give you a itemised list of the files they can find and then you decided what you want. Not cheap eh?!?!
 
Nope. I'd do this myself if I needed to.
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Any chance you could share how to ?

Karlod - I've found out that you can download freeware called pcinspector from pcinspector.de and then run this to retrieve the deleted files. You'll need a 2nd laptop/hard-drive though to use it. Doesn't seem as complicated as first thought. I was told if it's mechanical failure (which mines sounds like) it can be 700-2000 so yours is a better quote !

Fingers crossed this works.
 
karlod said:
The same thing happened to me yesterday, although my hard drive kinda fell. I sopke to the data recovery people. I was told that it could be anywhere from 200-600 to get the data of the drive!!! Depending on the amount of damge done. After the evaluation they give you a itemised list of the files they can find and then you decided what you want. Not cheap eh?!?!
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I don't know if anyone cares, but the reason it is so expensive is because they have to get the hard drive platters (the individual disks) out of the original housing in a clean room (specially designed and protected to free from airborne contamination) and remount the disks so that they can be read by another system. When the first company I worked for had to do this on a development system it cost them over £1,500 stg and they only retrieved a few scripts and other text files.
 
Sylvester3 said:
I don't know if anyone cares, but the reason it is so expensive is because they have to get the hard drive platters (the individual disks) out of the original housing in a clean room (specially designed and protected to free from airborne contamination) and remount the disks so that they can be read by another system. When the first company I worked for had to do this on a development system it cost them over £1,500 stg and they only retrieved a few scripts and other text files.
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They surely don't have to do that in every situation. Only those in which software/tools solutions (such as those mentioned here or in other existing threads on this topic) fail to recover the data? Of course if they have to open up the physical drive unit in this way then it will certainly void your warranty such that regardless of whether or not they recover your data you will be unable to get a replacement drive under warranty from the retailer or manufacturer.
 
You are of course right, Clubman, but the upper end of suggested costs for data retrieval would likely be for the scenario I suggested.
 
I'm in the same situiation, in that I am trying to get data from an old hard drive that was an internal disk on my PC - I want to transfer the files to my laptop. I have trialled Seagate Data Recovery (available for trial on their site), and soo far has been the olnly way I can access the data. If anyone knows a decent free / shareware version, would be interested in knowing as thi aoftware is $130. Maybe give this a try, and see if it can access your disk - the files will be visible in a window.
 
As I keep saying there are several existing threads on this topic that people should check out.
 
Clubman - I have searched & only found a thread from 2006 talking about that company re data retrieval. Maybe I should devote more time to searching instead of posting sorry !


If anyone knows a decent free / shareware version, would be interested in knowing as thi aoftware is $130
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pcinspector.de was recommended to me as per my previous post - the site is quite good too.
 
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