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General discussion

IOMEGA Minimax 1TB drive not mounting

Nov 18, 2009 7:35PM PST

This Minimax 1 TB hard drive has been working perfectly for months.
It suddenly refused to show on the desktop. It is firewire chained to another Iomega 1 TB drive. I have tried to connect it on its own and to another computer but still would not boot. It starts with the normal booting noise and then goes quiet, not appearing on the desktop. It does not make the dreadful "click-click" noise which I hope is a good sign?
It contains one file "APERTURE LIBRARY" which has over 50,000 photos.
All are already backed-up except the most recent ones dated from 12/11/09.
They are the only ones (some 100 photos) that I actually need to recover (all NEF files).
Can someone tell me if I could just swap the disk from one case to the other (which works well so far) and how easy it would be to do it?
Thanks for your comments as if I could fix it myself, it would be nice.
Cheers

Discussion is locked

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Iomega
Nov 18, 2009 8:55PM PST

It "should" be possible to remove the drive from that enclosure, it will void any Iomega warranty though, but you will have to look carefully to see how it is constructed.

If you succeed in opening it up, the drive inside is just a regular 3.5" IDE HD. You will need another enclosure to put it into to attempt data recovery/use.
This drive will work in a USB 2.0 enclosure too.

Question: When you first got these drives, did you reformat them for use with your Mac or did you just leave them in the format that they came from the manufacturer?

Unless the box specifically stated that these drives were formatted for a Mac, then they are still formatted as FAT which is notoriously unstable.


P

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Iomega 1TB Minimax HD not mounting
Nov 19, 2009 7:06AM PST

Hi,

Many thanks for your quick and clear reply.
Well, I never formatted the drives when I received them as I did not know.
This one is just over a year old and the warranty is therefore void.
I will try to open it but first I had an email today from a gentleman named Jon Brownlee, Case Manager, Iomega recovery service. Hopefully I shall talk to him tomorrow and find out the best way to do it.
Regards
Frederic

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(NT) Let us know how you get on
Nov 20, 2009 3:58AM PST
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Iomega 1TB Minimax HD not mounting
Nov 20, 2009 5:57AM PST

Jon Brownlee did not call today so I am stuck for the weekend and hope for a call on Monday.

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Iomega 1TB Minimax HD not mounting
Nov 22, 2009 11:18PM PST

Still no call from Jon? Weird as he sent me an email last week saying he tried to call me. I was not home but funny enough did not get any message on the answering machine... I replied that I may call him if he would provide a number.
Anyway, I am rebuilding my library from the Vault on another Iomega 1TB which had my Time Machine back-up. I formatted it as a Mac OS Extended (journaled)this time.
It's been going on for 24 hours already (870 GB). Only half of the 434219 file have gone through...
Hopefully, I will get my library exactly as it was before (only missing the most recent shots since 13/11). Not a major crisis if Iomega cannot help to sort out my problem.
Though I hope that they will do something.
In the meantime, I have ordered a "USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Adapter Kit with Power Adapter for 2.5/3.5/5.25 Inch SATA or IDE Drive" to Amazon and will try opening the faulty Iomega case when I will receive this kit.
I will keep my fingers crossed as I never done this before...
Cheers
Frederic

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Iomega 1TB Minimax HD not mounting
Nov 28, 2009 9:58PM PST

Just for updating and closing this post, here is the latest development.
I finally called Jon whom informed me that he could organise the collection of my drive in order to check it and recover the content... BUT, it would cost a minimum of

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Rock and a hard place,
Nov 28, 2009 10:49PM PST

while it is a good thing that the Minimax is under warranty and that the exchange will not cost you anything, it has its downside.
Iomega, in honoring the warranty, will just take another Minimax off the shelf (possibly refurbished) and mail it to you.
NO attempt will be made to find out what is wrong with the unit. Is it a failed drive or a failed interface board.
Your unit will eventually go off to the workshop and be looked at but NO attempt will be made to track the unit, in regards to its previous owner, and if it turns out to be a defective board, it will be replaced, the drive formatted as FAT and it will go into the refurbished store for exchange by some other unlucky Minimax user.

Out of warranty would mean that you could spend $40, or less, on another enclosure and pop the drive out of the Minimax and into the enclosure and proving, one way or the other, that either the enclosure went bad or the drive was dead.
Of course, now that you have found out that the warranty is still valid, opening the enclosure will end all hope of having a free, albeit blank, replacement.

Are you saying that your big Aperture file only exists in one place? No backup??

P

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Iomega 1TB Minimax HD not mounting
Nov 29, 2009 6:17AM PST

Hi P,
Fortunately, I always do back up and my Aperture file (870 GB) was backed-up in a Vault (on another Iomega 1TB). I am only short of the 3 last days shooting (some 300 pics which are not of the utmost importance).
Meanwhile, restoring my Aperture vault has been causing a lot of problems so far and I am expecting replies from the Aperture forum. But at least all my photos (60,000 +) are safe.
it is just that all my albums are not synchronized and I may have to sort them out all over from their main projects.

Thanks for your tips on Iomega. If I was clever enough with my DIY, I would definitely take the chance of opening my drive, but I am useless and I know that I would make a mess of it.

I did order a "S-ATA&IDE USB2.0" set to connect a drive to a computer and I will try it on a 500GB Western Digital Book that also failed recently with nothing important. Fingers crossed, if I succeed I might go for the Iomega. (Specially after what you are telling me about their poor respect of consumers - I have 7 Iomega drives of various models and size).

Cheers
Frederic

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hello there John
Dec 23, 2011 9:49AM PST

i have exactly the same problem, and i dont know which way is best to tackle, i dont even wanna call iomega cuz they are a bunch of ********..... how did you finaly solved your minimax1Tb Iomega problem?