Lost data from external hard disk

[martaz32]

Hey! I'm new to this forum. I'm happy to be part of this site.
I'm having an external hard disk (Toshiba 1Tb), it stopped working all of a sudden. I have saved all my photos and documents on that hard disk. I'm not having any other copies of this. Will I be able to retrieve all data? Thanks for your time!!

[Tulack]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

"I hurt myself, would I live?" You should go to specialist who will diagnose your hard and answer your question.

[klev]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

All drives can die. All drives can become corrupt. You should have 2 backup solutions for any important data. If someone tells you that SSDs don't die like traditional drives, they are not credible.

Here's the order in which I would check things.

-See if drive is visible to the OS. If you don't know how to do this, you'll have to tell me what OS you're on. Be specific, such as Windows 10, OSX yosemite, Debian Wheezy, etc.

-If it's not, then you have a hardware problem and no program will solve that. Your options are to try prying it open and mounting the original drive via a spare sata cable. Of course you would need somewhere to hook it up and the cable itself, and this won't work at all if the case is using some weird proprietary raid or something like that (like with western digital).

If that still doesn't work, ask yourself if you're willing to spend a fortune to recover the data, definitely $500+, possibly much more depending on time involved. Most places won't charge you if they are unable to recover it, but if the raw drive isn't working they have to actually pull apart the drive itself to attempt recovery.

Next time back up your data to a couple places. Cloud services can work for secondary backup, but they aren't reliable enough for a primary backup.

[martaz32]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

"I hurt myself, would I live?" You should go to specialist who will diagnose your hard and answer your question.

I called upon the service centre and enquired about this. But they said they are not sure if they can retrieve data.

[martaz32]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

All drives can die. All drives can become corrupt. You should have 2 backup solutions for any important data. If someone tells you that SSDs don't die like traditional drives, they are not credible.

Here's the order in which I would check things.

-See if drive is visible to the OS. If you don't know how to do this, you'll have to tell me what OS you're on. Be specific, such as Windows 10, OSX yosemite, Debian Wheezy, etc.

-If it's not, then you have a hardware problem and no program will solve that. Your options are to try prying it open and mounting the original drive via a spare sata cable. Of course you would need somewhere to hook it up and the cable itself, and this won't work at all if the case is using some weird proprietary raid or something like that (like with western digital).

If that still doesn't work, ask yourself if you're willing to spend a fortune to recover the data, definitely $500+, possibly much more depending on time involved. Most places won't charge you if they are unable to recover it, but if the raw drive isn't working they have to actually pull apart the drive itself to attempt recovery.

Next time back up your data to a couple places. Cloud services can work for secondary backup, but they aren't reliable enough for a primary backup.

It is not visible in Windows 10, I have tried it. Whenever I connect my hard disk to the system, a pop-up appears "Format your disk". I'm thinking of giving it to my friends.
I have backup for all other files in that disk but recently I have added 2 more files and I forgot to keep another copy
I'm just praying that my friends should be able to correct it or else I don't know what should I do.

[klev]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

It is not visible in Windows 10, I have tried it. Whenever I connect my hard disk to the system, a pop-up appears "Format your disk". I'm thinking of giving it to my friends.
I have backup for all other files in that disk but recently I have added 2 more files and I forgot to keep another copy
I'm just praying that my friends should be able to correct it or else I don't know what should I do.

"Format your disk" means that the system can see it. If your computer could not detect the drive, that would be a different problem. Given what you're saying, you might be able to salvage it via software. If the drive didn't show up at all, that would be far more expensive to attempt.

At a software level, your friends would most likely try some of the recovery software out there. You could do the same. I haven't used Windows in years (strictly OSX and Debian), so I would have to think about that one.

[Tulack]

Re: Lost data from external hard disk

I called upon the service centre and enquired about this. But they said they are not sure if they can retrieve data.

It's not their job. There is services specializing on recovering. They should exam your disk.

If you have "format disk" error, you can recover all your files by using any of recovering software. You can even format it and still recover everything.

[C14]

The thing is, I am having trouble not only with migrations but also data recovery. I built that computer, and I'm an experienced software engineer, but I don't really know anything about Windows data recovery tools. I read some forums describing problems with the particular drive; I tried updating the drive firmware. No change in behavior. I read some forums on file recovery software; I downloaded some software and poked around, but basically got the same results as when just using Windows Explorer. Then I had a delete recovery partition tool that gave me some GREAT info about what they were able to do for SSDs: maybe replace the drive controller; maybe pull individual chips from the board to recover partial data and I'll also try that.