Retrieving data from a broken freecom harddrive

mickconlon

Hi there i've just just had my 250 gb freecom harddrive fail, it's not connecting to my laptop, major problem as i have over 2 years of work on it and no back up like a gob****e. anyways i'm hoping that someone can tell me if there's a way to retrieve my work, thanks a lot, mick

Run_to_da_hills

More than likely if you dropped a hdd the problem is mechanical and If you hear a clicking sound from it its knacked. If the information is very valuable you can send it off to a data retrieval centre that has a clean room to strip it down. This is expensive and may cost you several times the cost of a brand new PC. .

Sometimes if you place a HDD in a freezer for a while you can possibly retrieve stuff off it, only do it if you cant afford to send it off. Hard drives should not be stripped down unless you know what you are doing.

If you damaged the controller (Circuit board on Hdd) in the fall, i.e. static short out from a carpet you will have to find the EXACT same controller, i.e. same serial and part number and swap it over.

You can download various diagnostic programmes to detect hard drive faults such as Maxblast, Western Digital Lifeguard etc. These are only good if the HDD is capable of spinning..

biologikal

Confirm it's not a problem with the cable and your USB ports on the laptop before trying anything else.

I've had best success in retreiving data from failing hard drives with a USB>IDE interface cable and recovery software called File Scavenger. There are free recovery software applications available, so you'd be advised to try one before shelling out on software. I've tried a lot, and for speed and high chance of success, I don't bother trying anything else now. I've used this combination successfully on a drive that was clicking, though it was really on it's last legs, as a subsequent experiment to retreive the data again failed. If the disk is dying, it's important that you use the best method available/affordable to you, in relation to the value of the data you're trying to recover.

jimmycrackcorm

I've had more problems with the usb drivers than actual hardware failures. Does the drive spin up or make a noise or is it simply an unrecognized device in windows?

bnt

Can you see it in Device Manager at all, as a USB Disk? If not, well, it's an external drive, so it might be a problem with the cable - have you tried a spare?

Or, it could be the enclosure (USB chipset etc.) but not the drive itself. The only way to test it is to take the drive out of the enclosure and try it drive in another enclosure. They're not expensive (< €20 on komplett.ie), Or, if you can, put it in a laptop and boot it from a Linux "Live CD", see if it comes up. If all that sounds like too much, you need to talk to a PC shop, I think.