External Seagate Hard Drive failure

[ProfessorFate]

Have a favorite Sister in law having a challenge with her backup setup.
She has been using an external Seagate hard drive to back up her system for both files and pictures saved.
Now she is having problems seeing the drive when plugged in to her PC or is getting I/O errors as well.
The drive apparently has a lot of priceless pictures so what would be the most effective method to recover the data both cost wise and with complete recovery?

TIA

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, a backup is TWO or more copies. If she was archiving the ONLY copy of her pictures onto an external HD, that's not backup. That's tempting fate.

Assuming that she was backing up her pictures, then just buy another drive, and copy them from the other drive.

If she wasn't, and these pictures are truely valuable, then consider sending the drive off to a data-recovery firm. Expect a bill of $1000 or more.

 

[ProfessorFate]

OK, you got me, apparently this is the only copy.
Anyone with experience/recommendations on who to use?

 

[corkyg]

Since this is an external Seagate, it is also dependent on some electronics in the external case. It might be worth a shot to remove HDD from the case and connect it internally. Have another drive ready and see if some of the reaslly rare stuff canbe copied.

 

[Charlie98]

I have a Seagate GoFlex external, haven't had a problem with it yet. My first thought, if it's the same drive or similar, is check the cable and the adapter that plugs into the unit itself... mine got a little loose.

Also, maybe plug it into another machine and see if it's not the computer. I had some recognition issues when I transitioned to my new computer.

 

[ProfessorFate]

Since this is an external Seagate, it is also dependent on some electronics in the external case. It might be worth a shot to remove HDD from the case and connect it internally. Have another drive ready and see if some of the reaslly rare stuff canbe copied.

That might be a good call.
Anyone with experience sending a drive somewhere to have data restored?

 

[makaze]

Depends how much said pictures are worth, it wont be cheap.

 

[PowerYoga]

Had a similar problem once, the drive actually had the click of death. I removed the drive from the enclosure and installed it into my machine as a normal drive and was able to see everything, doesn't even have the clicking sound. Got everything off the drive, tested it for a few hours and heard absolutely nothing. Put it back into the enclosure, immediately got click of death again.

Long story short: Take it out of enclosure and hope it works. And remember that backups = 2 or more copies.

 

[Binky]

You should educate your sister on the term "backup," then help her try to retrieve the files, then set her up on some type of cloud-based backup for pictures.

Plan what you're going to do before hooking it up. Doing the wrong thing can cause more problems. As others have said, hooking it up to the computer without the case is probably a good option - the case may be the problem.

I see similar "backup" systems on a lot of computers. The best thing you can do for many of them is to take THEM out of the backup system (i.e automatic cloud-based).

 

[jjsbasmt]

Great advice from everyone. Just this evening I contacted Seagate to RMA a 3 yr old 500 GB FreeAgent Desk that refuses to be seen by 3 different systems even after swapping out the USB cable. The drive spins up with out any unusual noises but the blue light on the front of the enclosure doesn't come on. Drive has a 5 yr warranty and the lady on the phone was just great about the RMA. It didn't really have anything valuable on it however and I didn't want to void the warranty, although I would have liked very much to have opened it up and stuck in my BlacX Black Widow, or my Front Panel Internal SATA Drive Bay on my system.

 

[Old Hippie]

although I would have liked very much to have opened it up and stuck in my BlacX Black Widow, or my Front Panel Internal SATA Drive Bay on my system.

And this is why anyone with common sense buys an OEM drive and installs it into a quality external case.

Normally it's the case interface that fails and you can't remove the drive without voiding the warranty.

 

[jjsbasmt]

I agree with you Old Hippie, but I just try to help everyone that gives me projects to work on and The Seagate External was one of them. You can figure from my post that the Blac X and my Front Panel Antec SATA Drive Bay are what I must usually use for backups. The HD makers must sell a large volume of Externals as I seem to see quite a few of different models while shopping in B&M stores. In nearly 20 yrs of fooling around with computers I've only had to RMA 2 units for myself (internals) but certainly many more for other folks. Haven't had a bad RMA experience yet however.

 

[Binky]

The value of the external drive is most likely less than the value of the data. If you return a drive for RMA, you will lose 100% of the data on that drive. If you pull the drive and manage to recover some data, even if you blow the warranty, it's probably still worth it.

A 3TB external will cost you $140 or so. I'd certainly risk that in an effort to recover pictures.

 

[Turbonium]

And this is why anyone with common sense buys an OEM drive and installs it into a quality external case.

Normally it's the case interface that fails and you can't remove the drive without voiding the warranty.

Is this necessarily true?

I'm looking to backup around half a TB of data, and I'm either going to buy a pair of external drives to do it, or a pair of internal drives that I will then install into external drive enclosures (I'm buying a pair because I will then wipe the source drives, leaving me 2 copies of all files).

Are you saying that separately purchased external drive enclosures have inherently higher quality case interfaces than the pre-assembled ones do?

 

[Old Hippie]

Are you saying that separately purchased external drive enclosures have inherently higher quality case interfaces than the pre-assembled ones do?

Maybe yes and maybe no but the major advantage is being able to remove the drive from the case for troubleshooting without voiding the warranty.

Anoother advantage is you'll usually have a longer warranty by buying separate units than a prebuilt unit.

It's a much wiser decision to roll-yr-own.

 

[tweakboy]

Seagate was a good company until they hopped in bed with Maxtor. The drives are made from maxtor parts and sold as seagate name. The old Seagate was good ,, The Cheetah and Barracuda. ,, My dad has 2 external maxtors and he even leaves it on. Its just luck or chance it didn't break down. It will slowly give read and write problems then eventually die... I hear of many maxtors or seagates dieing,,,But a WD external as long as you take care of it,,, like not kick it or drop your PC ,,,can live past 55k hours of life. I retired my 120GB that had almost 60k hours milage. Also Samsung drives are good. its WDC and Samsung, going other companies means paying cheaper and getting cheaper!