Hard drive recovery

[David B]

Hi,

Could anyone help me out, I have a seagte 1tb from 1 Seagate Goflex home NAS, that has died (will not spin up, not recognised by bios) I have tried it in a USB dock and direct connection to the motherboard but nothing happens.

I have spoken to seagate and the NAS is under warranty but they want around £400 for data recovery. I have looked online and seen that a PCB swap is possible or removing a 12v TSV???? ( apparently it is used to protect from over voltage and this is what may have blown but it can be removed to enable it to power up and recover data)

Seagate are willing to exchange even if the drive has been put through data recovery but I need the stuff off first ( mainly films, MP3 but 13 years worth of digital pics, which I am most concerned with getting off)

If anyone knows any method of recovering the data or could recommend a company that could do it, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Geko]

If you manage to get the photos back I highly recommend using Picassa and uploading to google's servers. It is free if you keep the file size per photo under 3MB.

[Zoots]

If you can find a HDD or just a board with the right firmware on the logic board a swap-out will usually get it up and running if it's the board that's gone, but you must get the identical firmware on the board. I've tried with a very similar firmware and got it spinning but wouldn't be recognised.
Two HDD's I've managed to bring back to life with replacement boards though.

Google the firmware. eBay has come up trumps twice for me, though I did have to use the German eBay for one of them.

And FFS back-up. You shouldn't have the only copies of your photos on a media drive.

[Over Carl]

Sometimes it will be the board, sometimes it will be the actual drive.

A mate's sister's laptop drive died to they gave it to me last week. (I got an identical laptop for my sister with same hd and everything).

Swapped the boards today and it still just made crazy noises and wasn't detected by bios.

[Zoots]

True, but His isn't spinning up or being recognised though and that sounds boardy to me.

[David B]

Thanks guys

appreciate the backup situation, i will sort it when i get the files back, stupid I know.

Seen some boards for sale for about £40 but not sure on the firmware version i have. I have had a quote for £160 ish for the recovery, not sure wether to risk buying a board but then having to fork out for the recovery anyway, decisions decisions

[evilsatan]

Is the £160 quote from a reputable data recovery specialist? Last thing you want to do is let a cowboy start pissing around with it Have you tried asking the places where you've seen the boards for the FW version?

[David B]

yeah the data recovery people are legit, found them online and spoke to them on the phone, think i am going to try a board I have found for £45 first, as long as it gets my data off them i can send the drive back for replacement, i will keep everyone up to date

Cheers