Hard Drive Recovery

slickmcvic

I think im in trouble I plugged the wrong power supply into my external harddrive and now it wont work....is the data gone? Its a maxtor 160GB & can any one tell me who''l fix it PC world sent me on a wild goose chase...

homerzero

How Important is the data to you ? hard drive recovery can be costly and time consuming

Ruu_Old

You are getting no indication of power at all now? Can be costly as mentioned if you have to send it away. PC World might just send it back to the manufacturer.

tech

http://www.cbltech.com

I have used them a few times always got the data back, they will tell you what they can retieve from the disk and if you want to go head with it then you can , prices depend on what work they need to do also how much data is been recovered

joePC

I douth the Data would be wiped, Just open up the case and plug the Drive into your PC, its more than likely IDE.

tech

http://www.cbltech.com

I have used them a few times always got the data back, they will tell you what they can retieve from the disk and if you want to go head with it then you can , prices depend on what work they need to do also how much data is been recovered

jor el

As mentioned, you might have just blown up the external enclosures electronics, without having done any damage to the disk itself. If this is the case then open up the case, take out the hard disk and plug it into the PC on one if the IDE cables. Make sure to set master/slave appropriately.

If the PC doesn't pick it up, or hangs on hard disk detection, then it may be destroyed. The only course of action then may be to use a professional recovery company, but that can cost thousands. Replacing the PCB on your disk with one from an identical model might work too, but there's no guarantee.

slickmcvic

cheers lads...ive left the drive with a company and im getting quoted €600 & Vat for recovery....that sound good/bad??

Alun

slickmcvic wrote:

cheers lads...ive left the drive with a company and im getting quoted €600 & Vat for recovery....that sound good/bad??

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

As others have said, try taking the drive out of the enclosure first and trying it either in your PC or in another enclosure before shelling out that kind of cash!!! There's a chance that the drive itself is perfectly OK and it's only the enclosure electronics that's fried in which case all you'll have to do is buy a new enclosure (10's of € instead of 100's !)

slickmcvic

That sounds like it makes sense ...removing the hard drive & trying it in a new PC etc...I wouldnt have the know how to do it myself.... is there any companys out there that'll offer that type of service

Ghost Train

slickmcvic wrote:

cheers lads...ive left the drive with a company and im getting quoted €600 & Vat for recovery....that sound good/bad??

That sounds steep enough, but recovery of data from a busted drive can be slow and difficult. Really depends on if the data on the drive is worth that much to you.

Like others say if you take the enclosure apart and plug the drive into a new encloser or the spare sockets on your pc, there's a chance it might be read normally by the pc

Cal

It could well be the enclosure unit, but based on the quote received I guess it is more serious than that or you are being ripped off. It is quite possible that the hard drive controller has been blown. This would require getting another drive with the same controller. This could take about a week or so depending on the drive. Chances are your data is ok. This would be a lot cheaper than you were quoted. It would depend on how urgent recovering your data is.

Where are you based?

Cal.

Ghost Train

slickmcvic wrote:

That sounds like it makes sense ...removing the hard drive & trying it in a new PC etc...I wouldnt have the know how to do it myself.... is there any companys out there that'll offer that type of service

Would be easiest to get a new enclosure like this, should be available in alot of pc stores online or on the street
http://www.expansys.ie/p.aspx?i=114965

fit drive like this, drive will usually have some simple instructions
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1066/index02.asp

Any body handy with working with computers should be okay doing this

Alun

I've offered to take a look at it for him. He lives quite close by, and it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to determine whether the disk itself is still OK.

I assume that most of these enclosures have some sort of voltage regulator in them, i.e. they wouldn't just pass on the rough unregulated power from a block power supply straight to the disk electronics, so if anything I'd assume it was the voltage regulator that was borked, or if he's really lucky just a fuse.