Hard Drive recovery

[V8Granite]

Hi all,

My portable hard drive, Toshiba DTP210, lights up and after a few seconds flashes and then nothing.

I thought it may be the connector so bought a SADA to USB adaptor and plugged it in directly but still nothing.

Do I have to do anything when going direct from SADA to USB or should it just see the drive like normal ?

The reason I thought it was the connector was that I’d left the cable plugged in accidentally and left it in my work bag, I normally remove it so thought I’d damaged it.

Dave!

[DeskJockey]

You shouldn't have to do anything other than plugging it in.

Does the drive spin up when you connect it?

[V8Granite]

The light turns on, then the light flashes for a bit and that’s it.

I hear a small sound but that’s with my ear on it, I never heard it make a sound when it was in its case before.

Dave!

[Beany]

You should hear a subtle spin up, and some clickity click noises as the drive head flits about looking for data.

If you've tried it both on it's original controller, and a new one (the USB to SATA thingy) then there's a not unreasonable chance the drive or it's on board controller is just plain fucked. If it won't spin up, then data recovery goes from being merely complex, to complex and fairly pricey.

How much is the data worth to you?

[mik]

How much is the data worth to you?

Beany is blackmailing Dave.

[V8Granite]

It’s 7 years of work stuff so pretty important. Timesheets, expenses, manuals and job reports etc

Buggery bugger.

Dave!

[Ascender]

I take it if you look at whatever built-in disk utility you have, its not recognised by your OS at all? Even if you can't read it, that's usually step one to narrowing things down.

[V8Granite]

Once it connected and my laptop told me the drive I plugged in had a fault. All other times it just never sees you have plugged anything in.

Dave!

[mr_jon]

Next step is to connect the drive directly to a desktop computer with a sata cable, having removed it from the enclosure.

If it doesn't spin up then, stick it in the freezer for an hour in a sandwich bag with a silica gel pack in it, then try it straight from the freezer.

The last step is to make sure you have your critical data in more than one place, but you know that.

[V8Granite]

Next step is to connect the drive directly to a desktop computer with a sata cable, having removed it from the enclosure.

If it doesn't spin up then, stick it in the freezer for an hour in a sandwich bag with a silica gel pack in it, then try it straight from the freezer.

The last step is to make sure you have your critical data in more than one place, but you know that.

I shall give this a whirl.

I was backing it up on my laptop and hard drive till about 3 months ago then removed it from my laptop as I had run out of space. Schoolboy error on my part.

Dave!

[McSwede]

I know this doesn't help but I didn't realise people still used hard drives when good cloud storage has been available for years

[Beany]

I've been using a NAS in RAID 1 for a few years now.

If a disk fails, the other will have an exact duplicate of the data.

if the entire device fails, I can recover the data on a desktop computer.

I know a NAS and RAID aren't a backup, but it keeps the data 'safe enough' for me, and it's more convenient than a brace of external disks for my simple use case of wanking and banking.

[V8Granite]

I know this doesn't help but I didn't realise people still used hard drives when good cloud storage has been available for years

So many places in the world where you just simply have no internet coverage. Also with the VPN we use there are loads of networks it doesn’t like.

We have an M drive that my laptop is backed up on but it doesn’t have the information I put on my hard drive.

Dave!

[Jobbo]

I know this doesn't help but I didn't realise people still used hard drives when good cloud storage has been available for years

Or at least a backup of your important storage drive on a second one.

[tim]

Dave! you should have committed all this to memory so you can dictate it to your wife/child/pa/passing stranger in extremis. I hope you've learned your lesson.

Also what mr_jon said.

[V8Granite]

Bugger, didn’t work.

Dave!

[240PP]

There are data recover companies out there. The ex-gf used one, think most quotes were around £500 though..

[Matty]

If you have to use a recovery company, can highly recommend these guys:
https://www.lazarusdatarecovery.com/

We were sceptical as they were so much cheaper than OnTrack, but they've been brillaint both times we've used them.

[V8Granite]

Thanks for the link.

I’ll send it off on Monday once I’ve bought a new HD, think I’ll get a padded case and back it up on my home laptop too if they can recover it.

Still hopeful

Dave!

[mr_jon]

GL, may just be a board failure.