Portable Harddrive May Have Crashed - Help?!

[Boz]

Hi everyone!
At this point I'm staying cool and calm but as soon as someone tells me the date can not be recovered I will cry.

Today my portable hard drive decided it would be fun to not work. I plug it in it turns on but it does not connect to the computer. The lights on the portable HD flash instead of staying on. It doesn't make any odd noises (except for a very very light beep noise but I don't know if it usually makes this noise because it's so faint. I only noticed because I put the drive up to my ear. Plus after a while the noise stops).

I don't know what's wrong but it's frustrating. My laptop is older and only holds about 55gb. Well I have like 53gb of software on here so I had to move all my files to only this portable hard drive. Luckily about a month ago I backed up part of it to our other external HD only it got cut short because it ran out of space. I was planning on backing it up to my dad's computer sometime next week. Jeez I hope it's not too late. Everything in the last 6 months is on that. May not seem like a long time but trust me, I believe I had racked up over 200gb of data on that thing since March.

Does anyone have any ideas? Heck, I don't care if the hard drive is not usable anymore. If I can save the data I'll be more then happy. If the drive still works that'll be a bonus. The data on the drive is much more important then the drive itself. That's replaceable, the data isn't.

Thanks!

 

[missyscove]

Have you tried connecting it to another computer?
Did you drop it or cause any other kind of physical damage?
I once dropped the external hard drive where I stored all my itunes files while I was synching my iPod and lost all my music. It was devastating to say the least.

 

[NorthernAutumn]

A computer repair tech may be able to extract the drive itself and mount it, and then save your data. I think you had better call a repairman.

Don't send it to the company without having someone retrieve your data for you first. The manufacturer will only wipe it clean.
I'm sure there is a local technician who can drop by and hook you up

Could you get another identical external hard drive, and put your drive into it?

This is a good tutorial on Data Recovery: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/4294038

This is not an ideal solution, but it has worked for some people: http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html
I would read that thread very closely before you did that.

I really hope you can get a tech, though...

 

[Boz]

Thank you!
We tried hooking it up to my dad's computer and it did find it because it installed the drivers from the hard drive onto my dad's computer but we still couldn't see it and it was doing the same thing as usual. We are going to call Seagate tomorrow to see what we can do. I know they offer data recovery services as well (the cost though? not sure, can't be cheap though...). But I'm definitely keeping your links!! I read about the freezing thing. It scares me! haha!

 

[missyscove]

I tried freezing my drive, but it didn't help me. The cost to get the data off for me was going to be at least $500, since mine was cracked, and what I had on there wasn't worth quite that much to me.

 

[Boz]

Yeah that's what I have been reading, $500! I reallllly hope I get it fixed. $500 is just not something I (well most people) have layin around!

 

[Boz]

My dad called Seagate and they gave him permission to open it up and do whatever it was they told him to do. It's not looking good.

 

[Violet23]

If Seagate gave him permission then the warranty should still be good, and I do believe you can send the drive to them for recovery, they'll save the files you need (the ones they can recover anyway) but ya, its even more expensive, are the files worth that much to you is the question (I used to work at a computer store where we sent a bunch of stuff to Seagate, it was usually $900 or $1400 canadian dollars, depending on the damage)
but hopefully what your doing works!

 

[Boz]

Yeah it is still in warranty. But the recovery price is what's worrying me!

 

[Boz]

Oh snap. well what he tried didn't work. We tried a few times, no luck.
So he called back today and they will gladly recover the data! For $1200!!! :grumpy:
However there's a place in Madison that will do it for only $700! :shock:

I really want the data but $700?! ugh! I can buy a new laptop with that.

This really sucks. I had put a lot of stuff on that in the last month.
And I also lost my copyright "logos" I made. So now I have to remake them. And photos! omg! I had some of my most favorite photos of my nephew on it. My cousins senior photos without my copyright are on there. I am so upset right now. All this stuff was in the last month, so it wasn't backed up. For now on I'm backing up daily.

My dad said we are supposed to send the drive back to Seagate and they will send another. I was like "Why? Why do they need it? It's broke, let me keep it. Just send me a new one! Why do they need it anyway? It's broken!!" I was so mad! lol

 

[missyscove]

They can't prove it's broken if they don't get it.
I'd recommend getting 2 external hd's and using one for overflow and one for backup, or backing up all your important stuff onto DVD's you can keep somewhere safe.

 

[Boz]

Yeah I know lol! I was just mad cause I lost stuff. I didn't actually say that to them, just to my dad!

We are actually going to look into online backup.

 

[NorthernAutumn]

Online backup is a good idea!
I remember being told that you should back up everything that is uber-important in 3 places: online, hard-drive, and on CD.

Did you try the freeze process?

 

[Boz]

No we didn't. If we did we would probably lose the warranty lol! But I am tempted... I looked and all photos after July 18th were on that (besides ones posted on FB or uploaded somewhere else). Luckily I had just uploaded all the ones of my nephew to snapfish. If I had lost all of those the $700 might have been worth it. lol!