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External hard drive vanished
Wadders - 13/4/07 at 07:57 PM

eek! bought a Toshiba external hard drive about 18 months ago to store my photos and sage backups, and i think its died It lights up as normal, but the drive letter has gone from my computer, also i think it used to get quite warm, but its clap cold now, have tried a couple of different usb cables with no joy.
Don't care if the drive is shagged, but the data on it is priceless ( to me anyhow ) Where would be the best place to get the data recovered, and will i need a second mortgage?

TIA
Al.

RichardK - 13/4/07 at 08:11 PM

Data recovery is very expensive,they know they have you by the short and curlies if your data is that valuable.

Onto a more postive note quite ofter inside the external caddy is a normal laptop hard drive which can then be put inbto another caddy and the data recovered.

If you would like me to take a look at it while we have a chat don't mind. The offers is there.

BTW my proper job is being a pc tech.

Let me know.

Rich

Wadders - 13/4/07 at 08:47 PM

Hi Rich
you have u2u

Al.



Originally posted by RichardK
Data recovery is very expensive,they know they have you by the short and curlies if your data is that valuable.

Onto a more postive note quite ofter inside the external caddy is a normal laptop hard drive which can then be put inbto another caddy and the data recovered.

If you would like me to take a look at it while we have a chat don't mind. The offers is there.

BTW my proper job is being a pc tech.

Let me know.

Rich

britishtrident - 14/4/07 at 09:01 AM

Could be a power supply problem --- it is an external power supply check it with a volt meter quite often plug in power adaptors fail because the cord has been wounfd round the plug.

If it power is supplied via the USB try the drive on a different PC.

If this dosen't work open up the external case and check the connectors are fully home, I have seen at one external drive where the 80 pin connector had come partly unplugged.

If that dosen't work remove the HD and try it in connected directly to a PC motherboard IDE socket.

Keith Weiland - 14/4/07 at 05:22 PM

What Britishtrident said, An external HD is basically an internal drive in a caddy so if the caddy is at fault you can put the drive in your computer and it should work ok.