External Hard Drive Help - Ceramic Tile Advice Forums

Marge · 07-23-2008, 09:53 PM

Thought we were smart and have used an external hard drive for backup for a couple years. Decided recently to also backup to a USB memory stick for ease of transfer between puters and additional backup security. Murphy's Law arrived and the external drive died in the last couple of days. Lights are on, but no one answers the door.

Advice?

HS345 · 07-23-2008, 10:02 PM

That's usually not a good sign Marge

It is my understanding that at that point it usually takes the services of an expensive data recovery agency. But I am certainly no expert. I'm sure one of the real geeks will be along with some real advice.

I know I keep repeating it, but these guys can be very helpful. http://www.pchelpforum.com/ Not always the fastest help, but good and FREE.

It is in the forum format vbulletin, so you've already got a head start. A quick search couldn't hurt eh?

Marge · 07-23-2008, 10:08 PM

Thanks Greg.

Dave and I talked for a few weeks about downloading to the stick but it wasn't urgent (apparently it was). We have the current financial stuff backed up from the PC, but there were a lot of pictures on the external drive. Some of them weren't even of tile.

ddmoit · 07-23-2008, 10:11 PM

Don't panic yet, Marge. Your data is likely still safe on the drive. It's just that there has been a mechanical or electrical failure to be able to read the drive.

HS345 · 07-23-2008, 10:19 PM

Quote:

there were a lot of pictures on the external drive. Some of them weren't even of tile.

GASP! Blasphemer!

cx · 07-23-2008, 10:34 PM

Blasphemer?!! Ha! I've got more pichers of one kind of owl than I have of tile.

And you can't even make me say I'm sorry!

I am sorry about your lost data, though, CT. Bummer. I bet somebody hereabouts knows a good place that can reclaim it all, though.

Marge · 07-23-2008, 10:36 PM

Oh thanks Greg...call me names when I am down.

Just wait....when those pictures of you I have get retrieved.....

Yeah, those ones I'll have someone else photoshop....

cx, I'm hoping one of the boyz has a plan. Gots lotsa pitchers there.

HS345 · 07-23-2008, 10:48 PM

As long as you don't put this one up.

I am sorry about your external hdd too.

HS345 · 07-23-2008, 11:04 PM

Marge, here's a thread you might be able to glean some useful info from.

davem · 07-24-2008, 06:49 AM

Marge, it sounds like you didn't use the external hd for backup, you used it for storage. Once you have your pichers back (can't help with that though, I've never dealt with a broken hd recovery), make sure you've got your important info in at least two places.

I like to take pichers off my camera onto my main desktop, then copy them over the network to another computer, then back them up occasionally to external HD. I think I've also got some CD's burned.

On thing I've not done yet is get a copy out of the house in case we have a fire or something.

jgleason · 07-24-2008, 07:06 AM

Hi Marge,

Hard drives do go bad but a lot of the time the data can be recovered.

1. The drive powers up ok?
2. Any clicking or other noises not usually heard emanating from the drive?
3. Does Windows see the drive and give it a drive letter?

cx · 07-24-2008, 08:46 AM

Mmmmmm, interesting discussion.

I have whupped out a brand new 4gig thumb drive thingee and have commenced transferring pichers to it so's I can transfer them to my laptop.

Ain't backed up no picher files for a long time. Thanks, CT, for the reminder.

Marge · 07-24-2008, 09:12 AM

Drive powers up, no noises and the PC no longer recognizes it.

Dave, we used it for both backup and storage. Thank goodness the PC didn't die and we could backup all the financial info. That's how I discovered the external drive had died...the auto backup of Quicken failed.

davem · 07-24-2008, 09:23 AM

Could be just the electronics in the box are frapped. I'd be tempted to extract the hard drive and connect it directly to the inside of my desktop and see if it comes to life.

jgleason · 07-24-2008, 09:25 AM

In XP take a look at your event logs. Right-click on My Computer and select "Manage" from the menu. The Computer Management utility will be displayed.

Expand Event Viewer and check the System log entries for disk error events.

Click on the Disk Management option. From the menu, select Action...Rescan Disks. Does the drive show up at all in disk manager?

Click on Device Manager, anything banged out? (either yellow or red).

How old is the drive and what make/model/capacity?

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