External Hard Drive data recovery help

[Mayor]

I have a Maxtor external HD that has failed for no reason. I contacted Seagate and they want $1700 for the data recovery!
Does anyone know of a reliable service at a better price? The data is mostly photos & music.

Thanks,

j.

[TideRoll]

There are dozens and dozens of data recovery services out there. Depending on where you live, you might well come out ahead locally.

What has failed on the drive, do you know? If it is hard drive (i.e. click-of-death) related then you may be SOL as far as self-recovery. If it is something else, like a power supply, take that thing apart and throw the drive into a spare IDE or SATA port. If it is a controller card on the drive itself you might be able to swap it for another of the same make/model if you are confident fiddling around with such things.

I've pondered data recovery for a failed drive on my work computer once or twice, but like you I have found that the costs are so high as to make me question if the data was worth it. I've simply moved to double redundancy on select data and programs.

[Mayor]

I spoke with the tech support and I don't think it's the 'click' of death. I've had that on a laptop. I think they said it's a spindle? The drive makes a noise but not the 'click'.

Thanks

[Rolando]

All the ones I know are highly expensive. Those maxtor externals are crap. I have had 2 of them die myself.

[DKPRLP]

Just a couple of weeks ago I accidently deleted the partition and started to format my external HD. I used EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Bygod I got my data back. Took a while and im still strightening things out. It did work where 6 others failed.

[MadAl]

Had my 40gb backup drive fail. Took it to a local (Mac) repair service, charged me $120.

[TheTraveler]

Originally Posted by TideRoll

If it is something else, like a power supply, take that thing apart and throw the drive into a spare IDE or SATA port. If it is a controller card on the drive itself you might be able to swap it for another of the same make/model if you are confident fiddling around with such things.

Definitely worth considering - as long as you take precautions to avoid giving a static electricity discharge to your PC and you also unplug your PC, doing it yourself is a good idea! You may save yourself a lot of money and worry!

Originally Posted by TideRoll

I've simply moved to double redundancy on select data and programs.

I know it's small comfort to you now but in the future you might consider a main HD with a backup HD and a free/low-cost application to handle scheduled backups --- this is a low-cost, fairly safe method of ensuring data safety.

Good luck to you! And smoke a cigar or pipe to help you relax and ease any frustrations that may arise!

[Blueface]

I know it won't help you now but I have lost so many files due to crashes in the past that I chance nothing now.

I use two external hardrives as a backup.
Whenever I back up into one, I back up into the other right after that.
In addition, it also stored on my laptop.
The Mac's Leopard's Time Machine makes it real simple to back up the entire system.

I use the Seagate FreeAgent and a Western Digital (the small black one).
Both have not failed me as of yet.

[icehog3]

Originally Posted by Rolando

All the ones I know are highly expensive. Those maxtor externals are crap. I have had 2 of them die myself.

Can you recommend a better one you have found since then, I have been looking into this myself. Thanks!

[rhdad42]

How sensitive and how much data are you trying to recover? I had a modest 80GB drive go kaput on me, mainly with music, docs and some pitc, and I put it and some silica gel in a Ziploc bag in the freezer for a few hours. Then I took it out and hooked it up (after it adjusted temp) and was able to recover most of the data on it. It's a temporary fix, but sometimes it allows you just enough time to grab the data you need off the faulty drive.

If it doesn't spin, at that point you can try one of the expensive services. That being said, if it does fail to spin there is a risk that you may corrupt the data even more, so beware.

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by icehog3

Can you recommend a better one you have found since then, I have been looking into this myself. Thanks!

Tom, the Seagate FreeAgent I refer to is very reliable.
Rated one of the best.
However, best method to be totally safe is multiple units.

[SeanGAR]

Originally Posted by rhdad42

How sensitive and how much data are you trying to recover? I had a modest 80GB drive go kaput on me, mainly with music, docs and some pitc, and I put it and some silica gel in a Ziploc bag in the freezer for a few hours. Then I took it out and hooked it up (after it adjusted temp) and was able to recover most of the data on it. It's a temporary fix, but sometimes it allows you just enough time to grab the data you need off the faulty drive.

If it doesn't spin, at that point you can try one of the expensive services. That being said, if it does fail to spin there is a risk that you may corrupt the data even more, so beware.

Excellent advice, I've heard of this myself. I took a drive apart once and found a mechanical problem with the parking mechanism and dicked around with it opened up long enough to allow recovery of the important files. Not advisable but I really wasn't going to send it off.

I had two 2007 Seagate 2.5" IDE portable drives die in the past month (one 80GB one 120) in separate computers. Looks like they have a problem with QC on those or else I'm unlucky.

[dunng]

Originally Posted by Blueface

Tom, the Seagate FreeAgent I refer to is very reliable.
Rated one of the best.
However, best method to be totally safe is multiple units.

Multiple units with one offsite (or rotated offsite)... Seagate fan here as well.

[icehog3]

Originally Posted by Blueface

Tom, the Seagate FreeAgent I refer to is very reliable.
Rated one of the best.

Originally Posted by SeanGAR

I had two 2007 Seagate 2.5" IDE portable drives die in the past month (one 80GB one 120) in separate computers. Looks like they have a problem with QC on those or else I'm unlucky.

I'm so confused!!!!

[DKPRLP]

Originally Posted by DKPRLP

Just a couple of weeks ago I accidently deleted the partition and started to format my external HD. I used EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Bygod I got my data back. Took a while and im still strightening things out. It did work where 6 others failed.

Mayor did you try this?