broken external hard drive

[juras]

Hi, can anybody tell me if is possible recover data from broken external hard drive. I think it is burnt. I have plugged it by mistake to a different charger with higher voltage. It does not turn. I have tried to connect it to a computer but it does not work.

 

[Cheapest Printing]

I think that the best thing that you can do is to take the hard drive appart and inside you will see a hard drive that you should be able to plug into your computer....that way you will get the data.

We have had many problems with external hard drives and have decided to only use internal drives here now!

Matt

 

[juras]

Thanks I have already done that. but it does not work. It looks like it has damaged the part inside (motor). Do you think someone can replace it?

 

[chip_y2kuk]

Thanks I have already done that. but it does not work. It looks like it has damaged the part inside (motor). Do you think someone can replace it?

The type of recovery you are looking at can be very expensive, the drive will probably need to be sent away to a specialist recovery lab where it will need to be dismantled and inserted into a new housing (which need's to be identical to the original) then aligned and the data retrieved.

if the data is very important then send it away, else write it off and start from scratch.

joe

 

[juras]

Thanks, do you know any good place where to send it?

 

[chip_y2kuk]

Thanks, do you know any good place where to send it?

No sorry, there used to be a lot of companies that did professional data recovery.

joe

 

[benjamin_c]

I've done the same thing before, mine was just music and video so i just wrote it off but if it's important data then look at contacting a data recovery company, they can read the data on the platters using a special disk reading tool. you could do a diy job by buying an identical drive and then swopping the motor over but i wouldn't advise it if you dont know what you're doing and you value your data, this company can help you but it will come at a price...

http://www.krollontrack.co.uk/

Edit: this site is their data recovery site http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/

 

[andy@telecomhelpcouk]

Hi, can anybody tell me if is possible recover data from broken external hard drive. I think it is burnt. I have plugged it by mistake to a different charger with higher voltage. It does not turn. I have tried to connect it to a computer but it does not work.

It seems unlikely you can fix this yourself, but if you fancy a go take it apart (isolate from mains power first!).

Inside this device there will be a hard-disk which you should be able to remove from the external caddy. It should be possible to buy another caddy cheaply on eBay and swap it out. You sound sure the power control on the hardisk has been fried so this is unlikely to work.

Have a look on Youtube for a video that might help with your model of device - there are plenty of DIY clips for issues like this.

Be extremely careful when you power this device up again. If too daunting ship it to Kroll, they charged me about £700 last year to recover a destroyed server disk, it might be a bit cheaper depending on the amount of info needed. Good luck.

Andy

 

[Dawn Lane]

Although not able to help you with the recovery of your data, this happened to me about 18 months ago and I had to write off the data.

What it did teach me was that although all my info was on an external drive (internal hard drive on a previous machine had also blown 18 months prior to that with loss of data) I also needed to have back up of my external data.

I now back up my internal hard drive to an external disc, keep all my client info on a different external hard drive and back both of them up using IDrive - 2Gb of data is free and costs $4.99 per month for up to 150Gb of data storage. It will back up internal and external hard drives and usb sticks and can be set up to do this automatically. It also keeps a number of different versions and can be accessed/downloaded from any where you can access the internet. It has separate programs for Windows or Macs. It has been a god-send to me and would thoroughly recommend it.

Dawn

 

[nr-ts]

You could also try these guys for data recovery.

www.pcimage.co.uk

Good luck.

 

[AlphaTalk]

Don't try to fix it yourself, and definitely don't open the hard drive casing. It's sealed for a reason, even a speck of dust on the hard drive platter will result in significant data loss. Data recovery companies work in 'clean rooms' when opening drives, which prevent contamination.

Allow me to recommend www.disklabs.com - I used to work for them, and recommend them in 100% of cases for this kind of work.