Data Recovery question - Help a girl out please!!!

M

Maria Hodges

Geek Trainee
Okay,
Long story not so short - I had a WD 250 gig drive that was in a My Book NAS. It started whining several weeks ago. Fearing it dying I ordered 2 new drives and a Synology NAS. Before it all arrived the drive quit. The My Book powers up, the drive whines a bit, the light flashes from orange to blue. It never gets to a solid blue state and the the drive isn't available via the network. I contacted data recovery places who quoted $700 - $2500 and they won't tell me a more accurate price until they open up my drive. I can't afford the $2500 side of things so I bought an IDE enclosure. My win7 laptop sees the enclosure. No drive shows up in My Computer. Did manage drives. It sees it there. Knows it is 250 gigs but says it isn't 'available for use' until I format. Soooo, question is: if I format it should my laptop see it and I can then access the old folder structure? I know formatting would kill it if you had an OS but I was hoping that since I just need a few folders I could still see them and the formatting would just allow my laptop to see the drive. My SATA enclosure I used on an old drive where the OS corrupted worked right away. Move drive over, browse folder structure, copy done. So I don't if not being able to see this drive right away is due to it being DEAD or if it is more a result of it never having a true OS on it?? I appreciate any help/advice.
Maria
 
Hello,
If your HDD's motor "took a leave of absence" there is nothing more you can do about it. Except paying the prices you mentioned, somewhere in the upper range. If the HDD's controller developed a few problems, that shouldn't cost very much. The simplest thing would be to buy an exact HDD model, replace the PCB on the back and you are good to go.
What I would do, is this: I would hook up that HDD to a PC directly, not through USB, but through PATA/SATA, and then run a SMART test. The returned error code ( more on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T. ) should help you narrow it down somewhat. A pretty decent and free tool for monitoring would be this one: http://www.badministrateur.com/node/134 (a port of smartmontools from GNU/Linux).
As for formating the partition(s) on the HDD, keep that as a last resort. Formating erases the directory structure and creates a new one on top, regardless of there being an OS installed or not. Yes, technically you can recover a partition that has been formated. Acronis and DIY iRecover are 2 good tools for that. But sometimes things don't work out that well.



Just bought My new Horize laptop . I'm so proud of it so far.

Intel Core i7-960 3.2-3.4Ghz Processor
Innovation Cooling IC Diamond 24 Carat for CPU + GPU
8GB 1333Mhz RAM (2x 4GB Configuration)
500GB 7200rpm Seagate Hard Disk
nVidia Geforce GTX560M 1.5GB GDDR5
 
Thanks Ryann. Going to see if I can track down another 'same modele' drive. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out!

Sorry, same model...
 
You can also search for computer repair shops that offer repair services, hopefully they have the PCB of the exact same model you need. Depending on the Hard Drive if it is already an old/outdated model then it will be hard to find one. And no, if you format it, all the files in the HDD will be deleted/lost. Try using the drive while on the external enclosure, on another laptop or desktop and see if it can be accessed from there.. Or attach the IDE drive (assuming it is IDE based from what you said) and use it as a slave drive.
 
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