Broken External Hard Drive

[PAH]

Take it to those geeks down at PC World (Nerd Herd?) and say you need it working as it's got the only copy of photos of you and your girlfriend on holiday, but tell them to please don't look at the folder that says 'bedroom antics'.

If it's recoverable I guarantee they'll have it working within the day. May not be advisable if there really is any content you wouldn't want them to see.

[Clippy]

Are they pricey? Ultimately it's just to recover a load of photos.

Yes.

But, all such services are, in these circumstances, as they know they have you over a barrel.

Why not email them for a quote.

[wurzel]

If you need to use a third party to re-build the drive and recover the data I can highly recommend DiskLabs.

Are they pricey? Ultimately it's just to recover a load of photos.

[Clippy]

Tried that but didn't work.

Not sure if a new caddy will work either - every time I connect the drive to the USB port I hear a bit of thrashing for a few seconds then it stops

If you need to use a third party to re-build the drive and recover the data I can highly recommend DiskLabs.

[wurzel]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

Tried that but didn't work.

Not sure if a new caddy will work either - every time I connect the drive to the USB port I hear a bit of thrashing for a few seconds then it stops

[Platypus]

It's true. I've had success in the past with this method, although it was a 2.5" drive

I tried it, didn't work for me :-(

But I've heard many success stories.

[Sysman]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

As a step before that, switching everything off overnight can be enough. This has saved me several times.

[scooterscot]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

It's true. I've had success in the past with this method, although it was a 2.5" drive

[OwlHoot]

...Won't spin up. Is there anything that can be done to recover the data?

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

[VectraMan]

Yes they work really well. Great use for an old drive.

Of course if you have a desktop, and you're removing the drive from the USB enclosure, you could always just connect it up to the desktop.

[wurzel]

Nice one. I'll give that a whirl

[Fred Bloggs]

+1 I bought a ESATA/USB caddy for about £15 and it works fine when you put the disk into it. Take the disk out of its own box and see if it is a SATA or an older EIDE drive. Then buy the right caddy.

[doodab]

Is it USB powered or separate PSU?

You could try extracting the actual drive and putting it in another caddy or PATA/SATA to USB adapter.

You could always send it off to those data recovery folks, they'll almost certainly be able to help, but I don't think it's cheap.

You are probably better off getting a new drive and restoring from backup.

[wurzel]

...Won't spin up. Is there anything that can be done to recover the data?