Data Recovery - Help needed

jonny68

I know this isn't directly related to dance music but hoping someone can help me out anyway, basically i dropped my 500GB external hard drive last weekend and the laptop wouldn't recognise it,dropped it into a PC repair place and your man says the data needs to be recovered and that will cost Eur 350 to recover the files providing they can recover them, that's mad money and im hoping someone knows somewhere cheaper or could even do it themselves for cheaper, my entire music collection is on there (close on 20,000 MP3's,etc) and ill literally go ballistic if i cant recover the files although in most cases they can, i stupidly never backed it up on and ive learned a valueable lesson here, so im hoping someone can offer some assistance here,i cant afford Eur 350 right now, way too much money!

Cheers

Jonny

KevIRL

Sorry I cant help ya out Jonny, but thats some dose of a thing to happen.

Hope you get it sorted.

Techy types...get in here and help the guy out

BaZmO*

That sounds like a real p1sser man. I noticed another thread yesterday about "data recovery" and they mentioned it cost an awful lot to get done. Why is it so expensive? Because it's so labour intensive?

I know this isn't helpful to you Jonny! However, you'd be better off checking the geeks and nerds forum......sorry the Computer forum!

jonny68

ah cheers lads anyway ill post up something in the computers section later, regardless ill pay whatever it takes to recover this data, my music is priceless.

allybhoy

Hi Jonny,
Few questions....

1. When you plug it into your pc/laptop does it even recognise that its connected?

2. If it does recognise it does it assign it a drive letter? eg:- G:\

3. If you right click MY COMPUTER, then left click manage. Then open up disk management. does it appear in there and if so does it say anthing about the file structure?

4. Can you (careful now) open up the case surrounding the external drive? Sometimes these external drives are just basic shockproof cases for IDE drives (pc harddrives)

Basically you find out the answers to these questions before I know what you should do next. There are a lot of (very effective) data recovery applications that can recover data once the drive is being recognised at hardware level by the operating system. However if it is not recognised then you might be in a slight bit of trouble. you would have to send the disk away to the UK or the States and they would open the heads of the disks in a dustproof environment and move them onto a new disk. however this procedure is extremely expensive, roughly 100euro per 1GB recovered so hopefully its not this as your computer store would have told you about this.

Scubadevils

Can be mad money to restore lost info on a damaged hard drive - I have heard as much as 10k to recover data!

Anyways, if you have no joy here...these lads should be able to help -

www.backfromthefuture.ie

...at a price I'm sure but I do know they can recover hd's

jonny68

allybhoy cheers for the info but the laptop doesn't recognize the hard drive when i plus it in, only the light comes up and it makes a noise like it's booting up then stops, the bloke in the PC repair shop said he can send it to someone he knows to recover the data but it will cost €350 if he can recover it.

Felix cheers mate ill keep these guys in mind.

tommylizard

commiserations man, thats a kick in the stones.

mind you, i was installing a USB hub last week and i f**ked it up somehow, all sorts of crazy s**t was happening - wouldnt recognise the mobile broadband, voip phone or external drive. i just reinstalled the drivers and hey presto, it got going again. try out a fresh install like it's the first time again, you never know, them things are hardy bast*rds.

~Marky~

Test it on a different computer just to make sure that its not working.

BumbleB

Sorry to hear that,

Sounds to me like your master boot record is corrupt , which is the index on the drive ,this happened to me when I unplugged an ext usb drive while it was running .I got a blue screen . Sometimes if you plug it into another computer it will see the drive automatically . You see if the drive was plugged in and fell and was unplugged , your usb drivers may be corrupt on your pc but will work in another ,try that anyway . There's a guy in dundalk that does data recovery and I dont think he's that expensive .He recovered all the data of a friend of mines computer and he was v pleased with his work . Will look out for his number for you.

All the best in recovering your data,

Run_to_da_hills

It can be one of two things, Controll card or drive itself. If the controll card goes you need a controller card from the exact same hdd. If it spins and clicks its the drive irself, sometimes sticking it in the freezer works as a last resort. 350 is cheap for data recovery if they have to strip it down in a clean room. I have been lucky by picking up controll cards on ebay from matching working drives. I learned my lesson a few years ago when I lost 60Gbs of stuff, I always buy at least two of the same hdds when i upgrade.

allybhoy

No problem Jonny,
what i would seriously do if i was you is try and take the drive apart,it could just be the usb controller in the box that is fried,wereas the drive itself might be fine. When you do this you could just try the HD in a pc on its own, its worth a shot especially if you dont hear any knocking or loud clicking from it. If you do hear that sound sometimes (as run to the hill) said you can try sticking it in a freezer for a few hours and then try and connect it up and see what happens,that worked for me once, however ive tried it like 10times. If you dont fancy doing it urself or if you dont know anyone that might do it for you send us a pm

Zascar

Mate post a message in the computers section and search for similar posts, I'm sure you can get your music back for less than €350
good luck man!

Slicklink

What make is it ?

Most External hard drives have recovery software ! Its only in extreme circumstances that you would need to go to a recovery agency and it would want to be significant data that you wanna recover.

Has happened to me in the past but recovered 99% of the data and reformated the drive but its useless now, bad sectors all over it.

As said alredy try it on another PC first. Even if you get a drive letter, thats a good sign as the boot sector is probably the only area damaged. The fact that the disk is spinning is also a good sign.

Post the details of the drive. Model etc.

Helix

try this freeware restorer

http://www.h3lx.com/uploads/RestoreErase.rar

jonny68

Thanks for all the assistance folks, it's a Western Digital 500GB External Hard drive one just like this http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=224
i left it into another place and they said the PC didn't recognise it so ive resigned myself to the fact that im gonna have to leave it in somewhere to get the data recovered, whenever i have the cash which wont be any day soon unless someone knows of some other magical way i can restore these files
(bear in mind my laptop or any other PC doesn't actually recognose the HD when it's plugged in)until then im just gonna have to survive on what ive downloaded (a measly 4Gb so far) fcuk me i miss my music

BumbleB

hey johnny 5 mine was also a wd older version . I wouldn't buy another one.

Had a similar problem last year with a Maxtor external hd.

Likewise with yourself, no pc would pick it up.

So with 30,000 tunes and no backup, I can relate to what your feeling.

In the end, I performed surgery on the bloody thing, I got out my PC tech bag, got a screwdriver, tried to unscrew the thing, though I couldn't due to size off screws etc, so I ended up reverting to my Shuttering days on the building sites and got me 18oz hammer used it with the screwdriver to break the case.

Inside was the harddrive, took out and put it into my desktop as a slave drive and all was A O K.

jonny68

NoDrama wrote: »

Had a similar problem last year with a Maxtor external hd.

Likewise with yourself, no pc would pick it up.

So with 30,000 tunes and no backup, I can relate to what your feeling.

In the end, I performed surgery on the bloody thing, I got out my PC tech bag, got a screwdriver, tried to unscrew the thing, though I couldn't due to size off screws etc, so I ended up reverting to my Shuttering days on the building sites and got me 18oz hammer used it with the screwdriver to break the case.

Inside was the harddrive, took out and put it into my desktop as a slave drive and all was A O K.

don't have a PC mate and wouldn't feel comfortable opening up in case i fcuked it up altogether

I understand man!
Only to well!

It is an option! With no desktop you can always purchase another HD enclosure.

Anyways man!

Hope everything works out for you!
Really do!

mcc

Hi Johnny,

Did you get sorted with data recovery? I am in the business and maybe able to help. Let me know and will see if we can get you sorted.

give me a contact you you

cheers
Max

sportswear

hey johnny,

i couldn't believe it when i read your post the exact same thing has happened to me!

except i didn't even drop mine it just stopped working.

mine is a WD 500GB myBook.

apparently the problem is rife with these drives. its pretty bent. i lost maybe 200GB worth oif stuff not even sure how ill get it back. loads of project work, years of photos, maybe 100GB music. college stuff im sickened.

i have the same issue with the PC not recognising it!

let me know what you do with yours.