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Failed External Hard Drive

IcemopperIcemopper Registered User regular
edited January 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
As the title says, I'm pretty sure my external hard drive is no longer working. It stored all of my music, and that was the only thing I used it for, so this is a pretty big bummer.

I: How do I know for sure it has failed? I've even gone out and bought a new USB chord which didn't work as well, so are there other ways to make sure I'm not just making this up?

II: Where do I go from here, to recover all my stuff, that is?

III: What kind of external hard drives should I look into for the future, if all I do with it is play music?

EDIT: I'm also wiling to consider going for an internal HD as well.

Icemopper on

Posts

  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    HDD recovery can be really, really expensive. There are some free and cheap utilities out there that you can try of course, but nothing is a sure thing. And the services where you send the drive off can run into the thousands, with no promise they'll be able to recover anything. If it's just music on your drive, unless it's something like music you've written and recorded yourself and it's your only copy, I'd say it's not really worth it.

    What kind of external is it?

    Internals are cheap, if you have a free bay and an SATA or IDE connection I'd say you're better off getting an internal, since it seems like you access it regularly instead of just using it as straight storage.

    matt has a problem on
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  • IcemopperIcemopper Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Yeah, I knew recovery can be expensive, but this is over 100 GB of music that has taken years and years to collect, and driven my bank account to the small digits. I might try it anyway, just because it has a, shall we say, emotional weight to it.

    And yeah, I'm thinking an internal will be the way to go next. Just gotta pick out which one. Newegg, here I come.

    Icemopper on
  • mechaThormechaThor Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Are you just plugging in the drive and it doesn't respond? Does the drive click? If there is no sign of physical HD damage you might be able to pry the casing apart and physically attach the drive via SATA cable to your computer and get the files that way if it has anything to do with the USB>SATA conversion board thingy.

    mechaThor on
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  • IcemopperIcemopper Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    mechaThor wrote: »
    Are you just plugging in the drive and it doesn't respond? Does the drive click? If there is no sign of physical HD damage you might be able to pry the casing apart and physically attach the drive via SATA cable to your computer and get the files that way if it has anything to do with the USB>SATA conversion board thingy.

    Well... I can try that, it is making some responsive noises, not a regular clicking or anything, and the light is on... I'll see what I can do.

    Thanks for the help so far.

    Icemopper on
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Penny Arcade Forums› Help / Advice Forum