external hard drive

[Dave]

Just got off the phone with our son and he tells me that his external
hard drive has become unreadable to his computer. Is there anything he
can do to recover the info, or should I tell him to take the hd to his
local repair shop?

Dave

 

[Jumbo Jack]

Just got off the phone with our son and he tells me that his external hard
drive has become unreadable to his computer. Is there anything he can do
to recover the info, or should I tell him to take the hd to his local
repair shop?

Dave

Before the BIG spend
try another port
try it on another computer
some say freezing it in a ply bag sometimes helps. I have never tried this
or it may just be an old wives tale.

 

[Peter Jason]

Before the BIG spend
try another port
try it on another computer
some say freezing it in a ply bag sometimes helps. I have never tried this
or it may just be an old wives tale.

I had an experience with a HDD where a faulty computer power supply
fried its control card. The disk & data were OK but I had to buy a
similar HDD and swap the control card over. Better take it to a
repair shop.

 

[Dave]

Before the BIG spend
try another port
try it on another computer
some say freezing it in a ply bag sometimes helps. I have never tried this
or it may just be an old wives tale.

I've told him about that and I suspect it will be in the freezer right now.

Dave

 

[Dave]

I had an experience with a HDD where a faulty computer power supply
fried its control card. The disk& data were OK but I had to buy a
similar HDD and swap the control card over. Better take it to a
repair shop.

If the freezing doesn't work, that's what he will have to do, but he is
notoriously known as a tight a**e

Dave

 

[Zaidy036]

I've told him about that and I suspect it will be in the freezer right now.

Dave

Freezing works butt only for a short run if bearings in drive are worn.
That is enough time to copy files to a good drive and may have to be
done several times to get them all.

 

[Char Jackson]

some say freezing it in a ply bag sometimes helps. I have never tried this
or it may just be an old wives tale.

Not necessarily a wive's tale. I had one just a few weeks ago.

A customer brought in a system and complained that the hard drive was
giving read errors. I turned the system on and it seemed fine...for a
few minutes, but then it was just like he said. Bottom line, I ended
up putting the drive in the freezer for awhile and then placing it
under two big glasses of ice water (use a plastic moisture barrier)
while I copied everything off. I got all the data without errors and
saved the day.

 

[Paul]

I've told him about that and I suspect it will be in the freezer right now.

Dave

If the drive is 3.5" and in an external enclosure, the first thing
to suspect is the wall adapter. There is a certain brand of enclosure,
which has a high failure rate on power. The drive itself might be fine.

For 2.5" drives, they don't generally come with adapters. They draw
5V at up to 500mA from the USB port.

Testing the 2.5" drive on another USB port, or using a "Y" cable
which can source additional current, as possible workarounds for a
balky 2.5" drive. (In this "Y" cable example, the red connector is
there to carry more milliamps of +5V power, while the middle connector
carries both power and data. The left-most end, is for the enclosure.
One of these might be used with a laptop.)

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/3417.jpg

Next step, is to remove the raw drive mechanism from the enclosure
and put it inside the computer. For 2.5" IDE, you'll need a 44 pin to
40 pin adapter. For 2.5" SATA, the same SATA cables as are inside the
machine already, will suffice. The reason for doing this test, is to
conclude the drive itself is the offending part, and not something
else.

If you get this far, and it isn't resolved, then yes, the freezer is
always an option. Use a zip top bag to avoid condensation or the like.
The drive is not "sealed" - there is no "vacuum" inside it. The drive
has a breather hole, which equalizes internal and external pressure.
So the drive has a tendency to breathe. If the drive is in a situation
where condensation can occur, if there is enough of it, it might get
past the filter on the breather hole. And that would not be good for the
drive.

If you have the money and the interest in doing data recovery, you
might bypass the freezer step. If you instead want to take a gamble,
and no harm done if it doesn't work, then by all means give the freezer
a try.

At the data recovery firm, first they try to recover the drive without
any screwdriver work. Sometimes, it's a firmware issue. There are a couple
models of Seagate drives, where you can connect a three pin TTL level serial
interface to the drive, and "talk" to it. That works for a certain class
of problem.

If the drive is totally unresponsive, or if you hear a warbling tone
of the motor being unable to rotate the spindle, then chances are it
needs to be opened up. Such work is done in a Class 100 or Class 10
clean room, glove box, or in a facility with an "air curtain". And
those are facilities that are hard to match in your basement workroom.
Normal air is filthy, and any dirt between head and platter, will
cause a head crash. So opening up an HDA, is purely for "show and tell"
at school, not for actual repair. The tolerances on a 1TB or 2TB drive,
are just too tight for handyman miracles.

The toughest part of data recovery, is connecting with a firm you
can trust. You'd be amazed how many small shops have sprouted up.

Paul

 

[Stan Brown]

Just got off the phone with our son and he tells me that his external
hard drive has become unreadable to his computer. Is there anything he
can do to recover the info, or should I tell him to take the hd to his
local repair shop?

Does he have access to another computer? The first thing is to see
whether that one can read it.

Come to think of it, I'd say that's the second thing. The first:

Based on my own experience from this past weekend, I wonder if maybe
it was as simple as a USB cable not plugged in quite firmly enough.
He should try removing and replugging the cable at both ends.

 

[Dave]

If the drive is 3.5" and in an external enclosure, the first thing
to suspect is the wall adapter. There is a certain brand of enclosure,
which has a high failure rate on power. The drive itself might be fine.

In a later conversation, he tells me that he has hung it on the internal
computer cables and he had no joy with it.

Dave