I just lost my hard drive by means it did not spin anymore! More thean 800GB photos on it. Can it be repaired? Have anybody experience with this? The drive is an SATA external drive with 1TB and i just wane secure my data. The drive is only one year old. Damn!

Hi Robert,

Don't Panic! First of all check the adapter and look if your disc becomes any or enough electricity. Two of my drivers don't work because their adapters died after exactly 6 months (chines time bomb) and I can't find anywhere any replacements and the WD says they just can send a new disc. Stupid huh? I need my undamaged datas and not an empty disc. Anyway, it is almost always possible to recover the datas even if the driver is badly physically damaged. It just might cost too much. There are professionals who can do that. Check if you have a virus on your computer which blocks the connection any try to connect it to another computer.

And backup is a MUST! I know how awful it is to lose all the work.

I have slipped a full glass of coffee last week on my laptop and I thought I'm dead. But I was lucky and everything works. I hope you are lucky too ;-)

Twice Robert....:(
None of your data will be lost. Kaveh's suggestion is good. If that fails any credible techie can possibly recover the data, and
if they cannot, they will suggest that you use a Data Retrieval Lab. The last option will retrieve probably everything, but unfortunately very pricey (£900 in the UK). So I hope that it is a simple fault. Colmar (who is also a real Rocket Scientist), once urged me not to do anything with the HD once this happens, because that is when you can loose info. Simply disconnect, and go to the Pro's. Good luck, I know how you feel.

My deepest sympathies. It has happened to me, although I didn't lose anything too terribly dear, especially since most of my images are on film. I hope you get it worked out with no loss of images and with little loss of cash.

Now treat yourself to your favorite comfort food and get a good night's sleep.

eSATA drive then ?

External drives have a habit of falling over and in some cases the hard drive is alright and it is the other hardware that makes up the unit that is at fault.

Could you supply us with the model of the drive in question and the computer you are using.

At work when we have had such problems we remove the hard drive from the external hard drive unit and installed the drive into a PC and have then been able to pull the data off it.

A timely warning to me, and everybody else. BACK UP! I don't do it often enough.
I really hope you can retrieve your info.

I'm sorry to hear that Robert, I just had problems with my external hard drive, and I thought it was electricity, the usb didn't worked anymore, but it wasn't a hard problem but a windows problem I think. I will tell you what I did, maybe you wanna try and see if it works for you too :)
I shut down my laptop, unplugged the accumulator, also the battery, flash disk, mouse, an let it like that a half an hour. My surprise was that after that, I connected the Hard Disk and it worked great, no problems anymore.

Oh no, what a nightmare!
As others wrote before, professional companys can restore the data for sure, but it's mostly expensive.
First i would also suggest to try it internally, if that does not work you can perhaps test the harddisk with a software perhaps you then know what is wrong -
If it's only the electronic part of the hd it should not be difficult and expensive to repair -
If it's the other part uhoh.
Another option would be that there is only a problem that the partition table is destroyed for example, then there are great recovery tools which can bring everything back.
It would be very bad if the HD makes strange sounds

Thank you all guys. Its an western digital drive. I was today on the way to find a specialist and i got one. He say the "logic card" (interface) is broken. If this arrive after i order today i hope it will spin again. I use APPLE and the HD runs in APPLE file system. I just can pray:-)
I had back up at least two of the partitions but the last shooting as this pictures are very imprtant has not been saved. Lets see what all those Indian fellows can do. They seems very convinced.

Robert

Hi Robert,
I am so sorry to hear this news..BUT..
I wanted to say..you have a Mac it seems? Yes, I do also. Do you have Time Machine set up with it? If you do, when you uploaded the files from your Compact Flash card IF..a big IF - Time Machine was running and backed up before your drive died - your files will be there..SAFE..and you can get them back in a few minutes....I am hoping it is not the drive connected to Time Machine which failed.

A friend had an external hard drive failure, with a Western Digital, and the local merchants were not able to fix it. However, he sent it to a company on line which specializes in recovery. They were able to get back every single file for him on a 500 Gig drive. It was rather costly, & took a week, but he thought worth it since it had his work files on it. If your people are not successful, let me know, and I will get the name of the company for you.

Also wanted to say that if you hard drive is still under warranty Western Digital will give you a new one. I realize this will not compensate, but at least you will have a new one for the future..
One more thing..have you reformatted for CF card? If not, there is recovery software for that also, and people have gotten back photos using it.

After my friend's story I bought a Mac with Time Machine, and Two External drives ...to have three copies..not counting DVD's. Soon we will all need an extra house for storage :)

Also, I have had this happen on a Western Digital - it lights up - nothing happens..it had come unplugged from the USB hub or Fire Wire. So check that of course the connections sometimes are loose.

I really wish you the best my fingers and toes are crossed for you.
regards,
Phyllis

If this any consolation I only buy iomega hard drives a little more expensive but this is the company with expertise in external storage. Never had a problem with any of my external hard drives. The images wont be lost they can be retrieved form the disc. I hope you get things sorted out.
Richard

Pasting in my reply from another thread:

I just saved the files from the drive from my wifes laptop. That one was actually spinning, but not reading. Tried first to run it in one of my external drives. No result. Then I got hold of a usb/SATA/IDE.. cable with its own powersupply (Hiyatek USB 2.0 til IDE/SATA Adapter). Worked!
This will of course not work if the disk is not willing to spin. But definitely worth a try, as there are other things in connection with the HD that can fail. And this adaptor is a cheap little thing, approx 40-50 US$

Not sure if this is too late - but expert in data recory should be used.

First rule in IT. "Do no harm".

Don't rush into things. Calm down, step back and get the expert. As in DAA RECOVERY expert - not just some dude who thinks he is a tech expert.

Those guys (real experts) can work wonders, with both software - transplatning logic boards and then also using clean rooms and moving platters and heads to new drives to get the data off.

But they are expensive!

Backups should be offline - IE non mechanical. TAPE works beast as DVD's and CD's do corrode.

www.mozy.com

Redundant SAN arrays that they use are good - but they are still "online' in that they are subject to loss from human or software error.

Thank you for all the help. My drive is still with the company for recover the data. I was thinking of tapes as there can be stored 300 GB on each one. But this is industrial equipment and very expensive. So i still have to wait. If no success i have a very good reason to make a lot of new pictures.

Robert

I am soo sorry Robert :(
i hope it is gonna be ok...and you will get back all your shots !
Good luck!!

When you get your recovered data back Robert, I hope you do, then I urge you to back up even if it something simply like burning a DVD every week. I back up my Master files to an external HD which only gets powered up when I do a backup and back up every file to DVD periodically. It isn't super cautious but enough i feel and only takes a matter of a few minutes when I do it.

Hope all goes well.

JP

Thank you John! I got my hard drive back from Mumbai but its still not spinning. I will take it to Germany and let change them all and save the disks inside. I do not trust this mumbai fellows as ther lots of customers picture on it which i do not want that the use it for something or even see by them self. I already spread out my left pictures on several drives which i use only when i needed!

Thank You!

Robert

Hi Robert,
so sory to hear what happen with your hard disc.
I use both Mac and WD for all my photowork, your story is a wake up call for me too.
Now I am bussy already with copying all my pictures files.

I cross my finger and I hope you will get all your data back.
Ricky

Hi Robert,

What about your HDD?
Have you recovered photos?

No till now i dont! I wait till i can go back to germany to take it to the laboratory. They can exchange the disk inside and read out the data!

Thank you for asking!

Robert

Wish you happy end.