External Hard Drive Help

[h0llywood]

I have an HP 500GB Hard Drive that took a dump on me. I need to extract my files, photos, videos, etc.

Blue light turns on but I cannot hear it spin. Computers cannot recognize it. It will say it is connected but nothing comes up.

Anyone with experience fixing these things? I think it is hardware failure, but does that mean it's completely crapped out or can I change the casing?

[Darth Biscuit]

In my experience, such issues are either:

A ) Power supply in enclosure is fuged

B ) Drive itself is fuged

If the light's coming on, sounds like it's the drive, and if so, you're probably screwed.

I have a IDE/SATA to USB adapter and I can take the drive out of the enclosure and test it... if you do not have one of those, get one, or take it to someone who does.

[h0llywood]

In my experience, such issues are either:

A ) Power supply in enclosure is fuged

B ) Drive itself is fuged

If the light's coming on, sounds like it's the drive, and if so, you're probably screwed.

I have a IDE/SATA to USB adapter and I can take the drive out of the enclosure and test it... if you do not have one of those, get one, or take it to someone who does.

Crap......... So does being screwed mean I cannot get my stuff out?

I have a lot of stuff on there that I do not trust someone having their hands on which makes things more complicated.

[Darth Biscuit]

Crap......... So does being screwed mean I cannot get my stuff out?

I have a lot of stuff on there that I do not trust someone having their hands on which makes things more complicated.

Well, yeah... unfortunately if the drive itself is dead, it doesn't leave you many options.

If one of my drives died, I do not have the tech expertise to retrieve the data... it can be done, but it's expensive and time consuming.

I'm not saying it's the drive for sure, but from what you said, it sounds like it.

This is the adapter type I have that I use to test such things...

Cheap if you want to try it yourself...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

[mmmbeans]

yeaaaa.... if it's not spinning up but the enclosure has power... that's a bad sign.

i'd suggest pulling it out of the enclosure and putting it into your case (or as biscuit suggested a SATA adapter) to see if it'll work... otherwise, you're gonna have to go in for data recovery, which may or may not work... especially if it's loaded with kiddy pr0n.

i know you've probably realized this by now... but hard drives are too cheap not to back your shiat up.

[mmmbeans]

Well, yeah... unfortunately if the drive itself is dead, it doesn't leave you many options.

If one of my drives died, I do not have the tech expertise to retrieve the data... it can be done, but it's expensive and time consuming.

I'm not saying it's the drive for sure, but from what you said, it sounds like it.

This is the adapter type I have that I use to test such things...

Cheap if you want to try it yourself...

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812232002

data recovery from corruption or erasure is one thing... literally transplanting the guts of a drive into another case is quite another, you need a clean room... which is crazy expensive.

[Inimicus]

If the drive cant be accessed as biscuit describes then crack open a beer and begin the mourning of the loss of your data.

Retrieval from dead drives is so cost prohibitive that unless you have something that's worth upwards of 10K on the drive you can just forget it.

[h0llywood]

FML....

In short I have videos/photos from Afghanistan that I need to retrieve. Nat Geo is doing a new documentary and requested to view my files but I don't want to give them my drive and have one of their people take everything I don't want them to have.

Maybe I should have one of their people try to fix it at their expense if it is really expensive as you guys say. I wish I was more knowledgeable with this crap

[mmmbeans]

first thing's first... buy one of those SATA docs that biscuit suggested and see if it works... it could just be a bad cable or corroded connection.

what kind of drive is it?

[h0llywood]

HP SimpleSave 500 GB USB 2.0 2.5-inch External Hard Drive

I bought it in 2009. I would think that the life shelf would last more than 3 years on these damn things.

[mmmbeans]

that sucks man... what a shitty feeling.

do you still have your tapes?

[h0llywood]

that sucks man... what a shitty feeling.

do you still have your tapes?

No which is crap. I thought this thing would last me which is why I bought it in the first place. I hate the fact that I know what's in it but I cannot access it.