Hard Drive Recovery?

[todd_cheese]

Hey group, ToddCheese here. Gather ye 'round and listen to my tale of woe:

I have a couple of old external hard drives that are filled with lots of files I'm sure people here on OCC would appreciate, even some things I don't believe I've ever seen posted here. I've posted a few things and had been meaning to do more, I swear.

Well, my old computer up and died on me, so I finally got myself a new one, but the old drives used USB 1.1 and the manufacturer no longer supports them. I bought a USB 2.0 external enclosure, pulled the drives out of the old and put them in the new... and now I can't get them to work at all. The drives both make a sound like they're trying to spin up, but the operating system doesn't recognize them.

So my question to everyone is, has anyone else had a hard drive successfully recovered? If so, what company did you go with? And how much did it cost? As money is kind of an issue, and all of the ones I've been able to find seem very expensive ($800 - $3,000 per drive depending on what the exact problem is).

Thanks in advance.

[Iamsailing]

If I am understanding you correctly and you think the drives are mechanically ok then usb is/was designed to be forwards/backwards compatible although obviously at reduced speeds.
Older external drive enclosures often seem to need extra drivers and stuff to make them work whatever the device which is a real pain when it comes to plugging them into something else.
Have you thought about asking around to see if anyone has a computer of the right generation in the attic which might at least let you do a one-off recovery extraction?

[dkdiablo]

I've had the same problem in the past. Very often if the HD is spinning but not apparently working, it's because of one of two things. a) the operating system not liking your partition or b), your computer is not reconising your caddy. When this happened to me I connected them directly to my motherboard and rebooted but sometimes I had to resort to using Windows built in disk management tool. To find it search the help database for ''computer management'' Click on the link to open it up and then click on Storage and then disk management. There if you see the HD in question then you can bring back online with I think the right click menu. I hope that this works but I'm still using Win XP and I don't know if this will work on later platforms.

Good Luck.

Originally Posted by todd_cheese

Hey group, ToddCheese here. Gather ye 'round and listen to my tale of woe:

I have a couple of old external hard drives that are filled with lots of files I'm sure people here on OCC would appreciate, even some things I don't believe I've ever seen posted here. I've posted a few things and had been meaning to do more, I swear.

Well, my old computer up and died on me, so I finally got myself a new one, but the old drives used USB 1.1 and the manufacturer no longer supports them. I bought a USB 2.0 external enclosure, pulled the drives out of the old and put them in the new... and now I can't get them to work at all. The drives both make a sound like they're trying to spin up, but the operating system doesn't recognize them.

So my question to everyone is, has anyone else had a hard drive successfully recovered? If so, what company did you go with? And how much did it cost? As money is kind of an issue, and all of the ones I've been able to find seem very expensive ($800 - $3,000 per drive depending on what the exact problem is).

Thanks in advance.

[todd_cheese]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Unfortunately I'm not very technical and I don't have a lot of time to dink with this at the moment. That's why I was looking for a reliable (but affordable since I'm also kind of broke) recovery service.

I did look into Iamsailing's suggestion and tried hooking the drive up to another computer from that era, however it is not recognizing the drive either. (Same problem, it makes the sound like it's trying to spin up but the OS doesn't recognize.)

[CP]

just a thought,, is the hard drive an old IDE drive or a newer SATA drive ?
the sata has a smaller cable than the IDE flat cables, and the IDE drive usually need the little jumper plugs
swapping over on the back, to make them work as a slave drive.

CP.

.

[todd_cheese]

CP, it's an older IDE drive. I'm not looking to install them internally (not comfortable opening up my PC and dicking around with it), was hoping to turn it into an external since those are much easier to deal with.

ezzy, I did try 2 different cables, both of which had previously worked. It was only about a day between when I last used the drive & cable, and when I put it into the enclosure. I've Googled and tried a bunch of stuff, and at this point everything is directing me to a recovery service. Unfortunately I don't have any tech buddies that I'd trust to recover the data, seeing as how most of it is stuff I've saved from this site and similar ones.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

[CP]

Originally Posted by todd_cheese

CP, it's an older IDE drive. I'm not looking to install them internally (not comfortable opening up my PC and dicking around with it), was hoping to turn it into an external since those are much easier to deal with.



Thanks for the suggestions, though.

OK, if its an old IDE drive, you should still be able to access the files. and there are 2 options.

1, get hold of a USB cradle or even just cables.

3, this is easier than it sounds now, but have a look inside your PC and check if you CD rom is IDE connection. If it is, then you can unplug the CD rom cable, and plug in the IDE hard drive. The cable will only plug in one way, as it has a little notch that locates when plugged in. It should then show up as another drive when you turn your pc on.

If these do not work, then have a look on the back end of the IDE drive. there is some little pins with a plastic jumper over some of the pins. You may have to remove one and slot it onto different pins, to make the drive into a slave drive. There should be a label on the face or back of the drive to explain where the jumpers plug in, depending on what you want. You could always google these options first to see photos online before you try anything.

best of luck

CP.

.

[Father Ted]

One of these, with an adequate power supply of at least 12V@2A will get you started, but buy the right one depending upon if the drive is SATA or IDE, although there are some universal docks that support both.

[e32100]

Have your read any of the suggestions in "Any way to recover pics from sd card?" thread https://forum.oneclickchicks.com/showthread.php?t=163201 ?

[todd_cheese]

I'll look into them, thanks.