Andy Taylor wrote: > Sounds almost terminal to me. Maybe its worth taking out the hard disk from > the USB caddy, and putting it into a PC. Try and read the data off then. >
On the other hand I would echo Michel's earlier comments - decide how important the data is first and decide whether professional recovery is worth considering. Don't "play" first if the data matters! We have relationships with a couple of recovery companies but to date every quote for works we've put out to customers has proved too expensive for them to proceed, so I can't vouch for their effectiveness. However it does mean I know something about their processes and the pricing structure. Most of the prices seem to be based on software corruption - they can recover from hardware problems, if necessary by removing the platters and transfering them into an identical drive in a clean environment (if you happen to have a working drive of an identical model that can reduce your costs significantly) - but understandably then you're out of the realms of fixed prices and the costs can escalate. There are lots of ways for a layman to recover data from "dead" drive, but they should only be attempted once you've ruled out spending money, and I can't vouch for any of them being successful. Techniques include freezing the drive (and even running it whilst still in the freezer!), carefully jolting it, etc - all of them attempts to get the drive working long enough just to get enough data off it before it dies completely. There are some good Linux tools, eg ddrescue (not dd_rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)#Recovery-oriented_variants_of_dd) which will get what it can and skip what it can't to get the best image it can from the drive to try to recover it. Of-course you do still need the PC to recognise that the drive exists first. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
