Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Is the hard drive in an external same as regular internal?

Options
  • 31-07-2009 2:05pm
    #1
    breadbin
    Registered Users Posts: 692 ✭✭✭


    my external seagate freeagent drive died on me yesterday so I took it apart and took the drive out. removed the chassis and usb thing and thought it would work like a normal sata hd in my PC but the bios doesn't recognise it.

    is it screwed? and if it wasn't f***ed would it work in the PC like a normal one? i thought seagate were a good brand but this didn't last 12 months:(

    I voided the warranty cos they're only 80-90 quid and the data was much more important so i tried to get that instead of sending it back and getting a new one.

    is there any tricks i can do to access it?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    uberpixie
    Registered Users Posts: 1,864 ✭✭✭uberpixie


    breadbin wrote: »
    my external seagate freeagent drive died on me yesterday so I took it apart and took the drive out. removed the chassis and usb thing and thought it would work like a normal sata hd in my PC but the bios doesn't recognise it.

    is it screwed? and if it wasn't f***ed would it work in the PC like a normal one? i thought seagate were a good brand but this didn't last 12 months:(

    I voided the warranty cos they're only 80-90 quid and the data was much more important so i tried to get that instead of sending it back and getting a new one.

    is there any tricks i can do to access it?

    if the bios does not recognise it: chances are it's dead as a dodo.

    A 3.5" external harddrive is simply a harddrive with a USB to sata/ide bridge and an external power supply: so it should be able to detect in the bios and function as a normal harddrive when you hook it up internally. (as you correctly thought)

    Did the harddrive make clicking noisess before it died? An old trick is to pop the harddrive in a plastic bag with a small pouch of silica gel(to absorb condensation) into a freezer for 15mins, then use as normal in your pc.

    This may bring the harddrive back to life for 10-20 mins. (freezing causes the platers inside the harddrive that store the data to contract) You can repeat this a few times in a row to try get some data off.

    Otherwise you are looking at a professional data recovery company which willcost at least a couple of hundred euro.

    Hindsight being a bitch and all: never rely on one hard drive only for important backups, have 2-3 backups and the extremely critical stuff backed up to DVDs and flash disks as well.:(


  • Options
    #3
    breadbin
    Registered Users Posts: 692 ✭✭✭breadbin


    i thought it was dead and luckilly enough there is nothing important lost, i had backups of most important stuff. but i ripped my dvd collection and converted them to avi so lots of man hours down the drain:(

    I did read about the freezing but it didn't make any clicking noises or anything like that. I did notice a few delayed write errors now and again but took no heed.

    i also read it is most likely the circuitry on the disk itself that is damaged so if I can get a similar hd i can swap the circuit board just to ge tthe films off and then put it back and voila. I might have a look but the thought of buying another one of these is crazy. i'll see how cheap i can get one for. thanks for the suggestion of the freezer, i heard it was a couple of hours to leave it in! lol


Advertisement