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General discussion

External HDD not readable

Nov 9, 2010 7:08PM PST

I have a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500GB (direct USB)

Everything was working fine until I started transferring some data to my ext hdd and system got hanged so i had to remove the cable directly ( I have to say that i have done that a lot of times which i know is wrong )

So when I put the cable in again it says the drive needs to be formatted to be used again. I selected cancel because i have almost 450gb of data in it which i didnt want to lose.
After that in My Computer all I see is Local Drive H (as it shold be) but without any info of the size and free space in it (like it normally does) unlike my internal drives.

When i try to open it, my system hangs . (specifically explorer.exe stops working) Same happens when i try to right click on it.

I tried to download some troubleshooting software from seagate site (SeaTools) but the program keeps showing "scanning for supported drives" for eternity (which otherwise shows my internal drives if i have not connected my external drive)

When i go to disk manage again everything hangs and shows not responding.

I tried to feel if the drive is moving inside. Initially as soon as i connect i can feel a slight movement inside (probably not as much as it was before but i cant be certain about that) and after a few min everything stops moving (maybe when the hdd is not in use it goes into this state, or maybe theres some prob..cant be certain)

Is there anything i can do to get my hdd working again? If not, is there a way of recovering the data back?

Discussion is locked

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Re: external hdd
Nov 9, 2010 7:30PM PST

These forums are full of people who thought an external HDD is useful as STORAGE. It isn't really. It's a nice way to move data between systems. And it's quite useful as one of a range of backup media. But it certainly isn't a good place to store 450 GB of data you have no other copy of and don't want to lose.

That being said, try the programs mentioned in post #3 of the forum sticky:
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7588_102-354911.html
Use them to recover the data to your internal hard disk. If that doesn't have 450 GB available, better find a PC that does have that space before starting or add a second internal hard disk of at least 500 GB to your current PC.

Kees

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Already tried that..
Nov 9, 2010 9:39PM PST

As i said my hdd is non readable.. When ever i select my drive (H in this case) in the recovery software and select search, the program stops responding.. I tried many software but all have the same issues.

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Re: unreadable drive.
Nov 9, 2010 9:53PM PST

That makes it necessary to find a professional data recovery company. We generally recomment drivesavers.com, but there are a lot of other respectable companies. It won't be free.

Kees

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Re: recovery company
Nov 9, 2010 10:18PM PST

So i guess you mean to say that there is absolutely nothing I can do myself about this?

And what is the actual method in which these companies recover the data? I just talked to a person who does this work and he said that he will be using software which will search for recoverable data and i may/may not be able to get entire data back. This sounds exactly like the software i have already tried. He said that everyone uses only these techniques and that no one usually opens the hdd and tries to transfer data from it.

This is pretty contradictory to what i thought. More over i cant trust what he said because i am currently in a very small town and i didnt have hopes on finding a data recover company at all and i somehow dont feel that they have expertise in what they do.

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Uhh..
Nov 9, 2010 10:38PM PST

I did some searching of how the recovering is done.. so disregard the previous post.
The people i talked to obviously didnt know anything.

Just wanted to know if data recovery (non software) will make my warranty invalid.

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Warranty on what?
Nov 9, 2010 10:46PM PST

Let me assume you mean the disk. I don't think you'll get the parts back when they are ready with it. So there is no question of warranty.

Your choice: a free new replacement disk without data in exchange for this broken one, or pay for both your data from the recovery company and a new disk from the shop.
By the way: it's somewhat doubtful there is warranty if you start telling how it happened. That wasn't fully in accordance with the user manual, maybe.

Kees

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About that warranty.
Nov 10, 2010 12:23AM PST

The warranty is on the drive. NOT THE DATA.

And if we do the usual (drivesavers or the usual) the warranty is void.

These 500GB externals can be had for 50 bucks so that's what we will pay if we try the other usual. Ready? The usual I try are in this forums STICKY and in your case the LaCie Miracle in the STICKY.

After that I open up the enclosure and try the HDD in a new enclosure or inside a desktop PC.

Good luck,
Bob

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Thanks for all the info!
Nov 10, 2010 2:08AM PST

That was helpful. I guess I will just try my luck with HDD replacement warranty for now. Thanks.