Please help with data recovery

loveabargin

We have a external hard drive which has stopped working, the data is ok but the drive motor is running very slow so we can not get to the data. We have contacted Freecom who say that they dont repair and also been intouch with a data recovery company who tell us that it's £75 to get it started and then they would give us a price of between £450 -£995 for the recovery of the data :eek:
The data involved is all our photo's we have taken over the years and we did not put them on cd :mad:
So we desperatley need your help
thanks

janinestevens

Hi, I can recommend a company in Dublin we have just used them for our raid array settings they charges us just over £1000 for three hard drives to be fixed. The company is Easy Recovery it's also no fix no fee..

https://www.easyrecovery.co.uk

albertross_2

the data is ok but the drive motor is running very slow so we can not get to the data.

Could you elaborate?

if the drive is spinning you may be able to take it out, and attach it as a slave to your PC.

If you have loads of data, use DVD's to backup, as you have found out, relying on a hard disk or any one medium for important files is not a good idea.

loveabargin

Hi Albertross and thanks for the quick reply

This is a usb external hard drive. The pc will eventually recognise it but will not take the data off because it's spinning to slow and times out. My OH knows what your saying but this will not work as there is no internal connections in the external hard drive and if it could be done it would not make the disk spin 7200 rpm as we fill it is a motor problem.

Also

Thanks Janiestevens for your post we will give them a ring.

albertross_2

It's worth a try, because it would rule out any power problem in the casing, and it's cheaper than sending it off in the post - hard disk recovery isn't cheap if the drive doesn't spin.

Is the external drive powered independently from the mains?

loveabargin

My OH concerns are that taking it to bits could cause more problems which might kill any hope of recovery. It is powered by mains and we have tried different power supplies, usb leads, ports and other pc's all with no luck.

So we have spoken to the people that janinestevens recommended, explained what's wrong and they confirmed that as their website states, it will not be no more than £250 if they can recover the data and no charge at all if they cannot.
(They did say they have a 98% recovery rate for freecom).
An exspensive lesson

Thanks for the advice but dont feel confident enough to take it to bits.

Tils

loveabargin wrote:

Thanks for the advice but dont feel confident enough to take it to bits.

Usually with external drives you have 2 parts to it. Casing and the Disk Inside.

The disk inside can be one of two sizes a laptop or PC size (usually). Now sometimes its a standard hard disk which you would put in your computer like any other you can buy.

I beleive whats being advised is you take the disk out of its casing (should be simple screws) and inside youll infact see the actual disk.

Check this picture and you can see the difference..

http://starkwong.ivehost.net/temp/vpc/images/notebook-1c.JPG

on the left is the hard disk.. with an extra connection botton left (for the case to work you simply unplug that from the disk)... on the right is the case for the external disk. your not actually dismantling the physical disk if you do you would lose any data on that disk..

But sure maybe if your not confident then take it to a company but for the cost of a little bit of reading you "may" be able to fix it yourself.

albertross_2

Is it making a clicking sound? The symptom you describe, could just be lack of power getting to the drive, and it trying to run off usb power, which is why I suggested trying it in the PC. It would do no harm just to plug it into the power supply inside you PC case, but I understand your worries about making things worse.

If the motor is really dying, then they are going to have to transfer the platters to another disk anyway.

Pack it up in loads of bubble wrap if you are sending it off..

loveabargin

Thanks Tils for your post


Albertross
No there is no clicking sound and the outer casing has no screws it's glued together so the only way to get the Disk out is to smash!!!! the casing.

Thanks for all the posts and time for the bubble wrap