Hard Disk Recovery

[Kezzer]

Yeh slight problem. My friend came over for some help with her work. I accidently tripped on the cable to her external hard disk which happens to contain ALL of her data including her dissertation work. Yes, the disk doesn't appear to be working, it attempts to try and do something, but then gives up. It's a Freecom drive.

I don't suppose anyone knows some method of retrieving the data or perhaps a data recovery service that you can send the hard disk over to?

I'm on the seat of my pants.

[GoNz0]

strip it down and see if running it direct from an IDE cable in the PC fires it up again. you can buy a 2.5" hard drive to standard IDE connections off ebay

[Fabula]

There are expensive data recovery services available, so try sa GoNzO says and try connecting the bare drive to see if it can be read. There are some good data recovery tools on Hiren´s boot CD if you are able to connect to it.

And also reccommend emailing work to yourself as a means of backup. Gmail is free and will cope with a thousand dissertations.

[max99]

You may be lucky and it's only the USB connection that's damaged. Do as the others have said and remove the drive from the case and either connect it to a spare IDE cable in your PC or use an IDE - USB connector. If this works and you can access the data, make sure you make a copy of all important files immediately to a CD or flash drive.

If you'd rather not risk this yourself, then you can send the drive to a data recovery company - most are hughly expensive, but this one is reasonably priced with a good reputation:

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/

And tell your friend in future to always have at least two copies of important files. It always amazes me how many students don't bother backing up all their work.

[Defenestration]

Is it an 2.5" or 3.5" drive ?

If the Freecom's still under warranty, you could call them up and say the drive just stopped working and there's improtant data on it.

If it's a no go, then I would probably take the drive out of the casing and try it in a Desktop. If that works, then you know the IDE-USB bridge has been damaged in the enclosure.

[UniRecovery]

First , avoid switching on the drive, the read/write arm might have snapped or the motor is out of place, therefore if you switch on the HDD this could easily scratch the surface of the platters/magnetic media. If the surface is scratched, then that is the end of it.
Unfortunately the data recovery process on such a hard disk drive could easily entail the head replacement , thus a new drive is required plus the cost of manpower.
As you are a student, give us a call, we will try to do our best in offering you an affordable price, we already have 15% discount for students, public services and charities. We may extend the reduction even further.
Feel free to call 08000 439 549 on http://www.unirecovery.co.uk/laptop.php

[peterb]

Did the drive get physically shocked (ie, did tripping over the cable cause it to fall to the floor) in which case the previous advice is good and you should seer about professional recovery services. If tripping over 'just' pulled the cable out, then you may be safe trying to connect the ide drive directly to a computer as was mentioned in an earlier post. There is still the risk that the drive may be physically damaged though - that jerk (the physical effect on the drive that is - although the owner of the drive would probably think of something else) might have imparted a high g shock to the disk, causing physical damage.

[Mist]

Data recovery services is an expensive mechanism, it involves lots of money. You can first try data recovery software, there are lots of them available online. You can try Stellar Phoenix windows Data Recovery Software a file and partition recovery utility which recovers data even from inaccessible hard drive. I have some success with this utility.
Download the demo and see if does shows you the preview of your lost data.
If you are able to see the preview of your lost data then get the full version to save

[kungpo]

As above. get the drive out and connected to a PC directly. Listen to the disk as it spins up. Spins up OK, you may be lucky. If you hear clunk noises, the drive is likely physically damaged. if that is tyhe case, do NOT do any more with the disk - you will only make the disk worse.

If you choose to send the disk off, hese guys are good:

http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk/

I have used them once in the past, and about to take another disk to them today.

Costs vary between £200 to a max of about £450 + VAT.