[bigbear]

Hi
Just been asked to look at Lacie external 250g drive that does not work.
The guy that owns it is a "yachty" and has 2yrs of photos on it and is desperate to save them
The hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda.
Have tried the usual, hooked as master IDE in my machine ( I have sata), checked jumpers.
Bios does not recognize it and my pc will not boot to windows with it connected.
Also have noticed it seems to get hot quite quicky.
Any other thoughts or am I flogging a dead horse?

 

[JohnWill]

If it's not even recognized and it's getting hot, I think the dead horse is the correct answer.

 

[bigbear]

John do you think that the recovery experts will be able to recover the photos?
BTW the drive is spinning.

 

[Compiler]

1 - Yes, recovery experts can do it.
2 - Stop powering up that dead drive - don't add more damage to it.

They charge PER MB of data. It may cost about $1200~5000 to recover. So if there is NON important stuff - you may be able to tell them to NOT recover certain parts - but don't count on it.

I use EXT drives as BACKUPS... I use 2 drives for my photos... And there are DVD-R discs ($1 each) which can work as back up as well.

 

[JohnWill]

I'd say that the recovery folks "may" be able to recover data from the drive. There is most certainly no guarantee that they'll be successful. If you ask any of them, there will be no absolute guarantee of any recovery at all, just an attempt.

 

[erick295]

The data is probably fine, I'm confident you'll be able to get it back if you're willing to pay for it. It sounds like it's just a bad controller, which wouldn't affect the disks -- it just stops you from accessing them. If you feel like tinkering, you can get an equivalent drive and replace the controller, but that's not guaranteed to work, and you do risk damaging the data by opening the drive, because the platters are very delicate and sensitive to dust, etc.

 

[Compiler]

The recovery folks will take your drive apart in a dust-free air-tight enviroment. There is a charge to attempt, then a charge for data recovery. So even if its as easy as replacing the controller or motor (which is sounds like) and your heads are not crashing (you'd hear it across a big house) - the data is most likely fine and they will charge ya a ton of money.