External Hard Drive-Who to send it to?

[JeffreyJim]

I just dropped my external hard drive off my desk and it's not working. I've tried everything I know to try and it looks like the HD itself is broken.

I NEED the data off this thing. Who should I send it to to extract it and put it on a new HD? They are all uuber expensive!!!

I figured one of you IT mags might know best....

[Nathan Explosion]

If it won't spin, it really doesn't matter that much, it's going to be tremendously expensive. They have to take your drive to a clean room, pull it apart, and put it on some very expensive machines to attempt to recover the data. Also, realize that most of these services offer no guarantee for that level of service, alot of them are very proud of a 60% success rate. Don't expect to get it all back, you may not get anything, and you'll probably be on the hook for the bill.

I lost a 500GB HD a few years back, and thought about doing a recovery, had a ton of stuff on there for school, and this was right before alot of it was due. The cheapest estimate I got was $1200.

[sar13]

Had a 250GB external die last winter. Family photos and business records. Decided it was worth the money to get it back.

Drive Savers out in CA was able to recover darn near everything on the drive. Cost me about $2200 but I decided it was worth it.

There number is 80-440-1904 and I am sure you can find them online.

[smalls]

what brand of HD?

in the future, keep in mind that the cost of redundancy is much lower than the cost of recovery.

[RShea]

There are a few options. First is does the drive make any noise? Clicking, etc? And second question is does the computer even recognize that a drive is out there? If no on both then you probably need reovery by a company that knows what they are doing and has a clean room.

Ontrack, Drive Savers, and Seagate (they purchased a company) all are good names in recovery. They will all provide a quotation and discuss the options for your recovery job (faster service is higher $) - either via the internet or giving them a call. The estimate will be in a price range (min will be probably $1500 up to max of say $3000 in my experience in computer repair for a number of years. They also will charge you more usually for the media to put the data back on (either sell you another hard drive or send a stack of DVD's or similar media.)

Questions to ask if you do not know what is going to happen- first is what is the charge if they can't recover any data (this happens from time to time)? Many will still bill you up to something like $500 for the opinion and you get nothing back other than the dead drive.

Second is how and who covers and pays for shipping to and from and is that included? (- ultimately of course you do in the price of their services)

Then you have to decide on if the fees are worth it vs loosing the stuff, or what you want to do.

There is one other company that I would have to do some searching to find the name, it was recommended in some other internet discussions as reliable but not as expensive as the others I list above. Each of the 3 I mentioned will be close in fees usually within 10% of each other.

If thousands of dollars are not worth it for recovery there are some other options other than the pros listed above that I am knowledgable about. There are numerous threads on here about data recovery, and software that will attempt to get data back if the drive can be seen on the computer. But remember that if the drive was damaged (head broken as an example) and you continue to try and use the drive- you could be causing more damage.

PM me if you want to consider the recovery to discuss and I can possibly help you out in getting the diagnostic fee waived if the data can't be recovered.

[Sensisnow]

Since this is an external drive, it's possible that it could be as simple as a loose connection inside the case. Is there any way you can remove the drive from the case and hook it up directly to your computer with a (most likely) SATA cable?

If you try that and it still won't spin, it's time to check out some of the recovery options above.

[deliberate]

I had a broken external HD. It broke in checked luggage, so I figured they tossed it around a bit. Kindof my fault for checking it. I took it apart, it was a SATA drive, so I plugged it into a desktop and powered up the commputer and it found the HD and all of the data. So, best I figured was that something physical that wasn't the HD. I backed everything up, tried a few other drives in the external enclouser, it seemed to work with them, so I put the original drive back in, powered it up, and it worked again. All my data was fine.

I would take apart the external case and plug it into a desktop computer and see if it is recognized. If you send it back to manufacturer they will wipe it.

[Wibby]

Since this is an external drive, it's possible that it could be as simple as a loose connection inside the case. Is there any way you can remove the drive from the case and hook it up directly to your computer with a (most likely) SATA cable?

If you try that and it still won't spin, it's time to check out some of the recovery options above.

Great advise. ^^^ also as others have said if the drive isn't spinning or recognised you will need to take the drive to a profesional.

[JeffreyJim]

The drive is spinning and isn't clicking. It is also recognized by my computer (weird huh?)

I've run Chkdsk and other programs with no success.

Sending it to my computer-fix-it guy who says he has a 50/50 chance....we'll see!!

[Onward]

This program saved my laptop drive when it crashed: http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm