farewell hard drive, i hardly knew ye

[♣ McKraut ♣]

it appears that it's something mechanical, yes.  windows will not recognize it as a drive.  however, the usb controller recognizes it as being connected.  so it will show up in BIOS or even in windows when your checking out the safely remove hardware utility...but not as a storage drive.

[Duc L'Smart]

no bueno

[bryant8]

i'm sure you tried using a different USB port

[♣ McKraut ♣]

i'm sure you tried using a different USB port

all 30 of them.

[MurDuc]

********WARNING***********
I MAKE NO PROMISES YOU WILL NOT END UP MAKING THE B W/2 B YOUR DRIVE

********WARNING***********
SEE ABOVE

********WARNING***********
READ IT ONE MORE TIME


You might try tearing out the actually hard drive and seeing if you can connect it as an internal drive on a known stable  and compatible system.
i.e. If there is a regular ole IDE drive in that USB enlosure, pop it onto an IDE port on a system that has one. I was able to recover a whole bunch of stuff on a FUBAR USB drive this way.

Also, you can Google recovery products and look for packages that support hard drive recovery and will let you test before you buy. They will scan the drive and let you know if it finds recoverable files. If it can then you have to pony up the 39.99 - 69.99 for the licensed product to actually perform the recovery.
This is assuming you can get the drive recognized at all.

If you come up totally SOL, and want stuff of it really bad, I might try these cats.
http://www.compurecovery.com/
I have no FHE but, they'll research for free, give you a quote based on what they find and charge only for recovered, "usable" data. You can also tell them which files are actually important to you. i.e. Those irreplaceable pics. Be ready to cough up a couple bills if they can get your data off though.

Good luck.
J

[RichD]

Have you tried plugging it into an old XP machine?

I could drag my big 'ol Acer laptop to the bikewash and see if it'l talk...

If so I'll get me some porn out of the deal, right?   

[svoloch]

it appears that it's something mechanical, yes.  windows will not recognize it as a drive.  however, the usb controller recognizes it as being connected.  so it will show up in BIOS or even in windows when your checking out the safely remove hardware utility...but not as a storage drive.

we all know the sound.  if you here the click click click whir....  click click click that means you are f~cked.  You can try the "thump it" trick while it's not plugged in and trying to spin.  if that doesn't work, and you are going to ditch the damn thing anyway, then you can do the crazy mofo trick of thumping it while it's clicking, but you are likely to shoot the heads across the disk and officially f~ck it.  Only do that if you are 1 step from throwing it in the trash, cuz you are just as likely to destroy it.

If you get it spinning, and the filesystem is whacked out, I can probably help you recover data.  ping me.

otherwise, all your options are expensive in the magical world of "click click click whir.....".  People will give you a decent quote if they are just pulling crap off of a damaged filesystem.  if it's mechanical, it's $$$$$$

lemmeno...

[pipeliner1978]

I can't say a make the beast with two backsing thing on this thread that would make any sense, so all I'm gonna say is I'm a HERO now BI*CHES!

[Duc L'Smart]

I'm a HERO

You've always been our hero

[pipeliner1978]

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[♣ McKraut ♣]

we all know the sound.  if you here the click click click whir....  click click click that means you are f~cked.  You can try the "thump it" trick while it's not plugged in and trying to spin.  if that doesn't work, and you are going to ditch the damn thing anyway, then you can do the crazy mofo trick of thumping it while it's clicking, but you are likely to shoot the heads across the disk and officially f~ck it.  Only do that if you are 1 step from throwing it in the trash, cuz you are just as likely to destroy it.

If you get it spinning, and the filesystem is whacked out, I can probably help you recover data.  ping me.

otherwise, all your options are expensive in the magical world of "click click click whir.....".  People will give you a decent quote if they are just pulling crap off of a damaged filesystem.  if it's mechanical, it's $$$$$$

lemmeno...

appreciate the offer man...but it looks like it's toast.  it does the click routine every time it starts now, whether plugged into the PC or not.  it sucks because the usb controller still recognizes it, so every time i start it up, windows dings to let me know the drive is connected, and for a brief moment i have a sense of [false] hope.  i'll probably swing by the office this weekend and hook it up to my work pc just to double-check that it's toast though before i pursue the RMA angle.  i have tried the freezer trick as well as the "thumping"...no dice   

[pipeliner1978]

[Duc L'Smart]

Any luck?

[Bonwilder]

I don't really know what to say on this thread cuz I don't know sh*t about computers, expect that Rich D. really doesn't like Windows Vista, not that that has anything to do with this.  Sorry about your luck, McKraut!  Two thumbs down!