1gb external hard drive almost dying

[adam30]

Hi All

I have a 1gb toshiba hard drive which is just over a year old with a 2 year warranty, it is now not being recognised when i plug in the usb. Would like to recover the data, have been told to try spinrite but quite pricey! Can you guys please recommend another app which could help?

Thank you

Adam

[evilsatan]

If it's a desktop drive the controller or PSU may have died, if it's a portable the controller may have died. Can you open the casing to get the drive out? Is it clicking or anything like that?

I have found that even when a drive doesn't load in windows it may load to a boot disc. How much data is on there and how much of it is vital?

I have used various methods over the years but recently I had a drive in that would be recognised by windows and would allow you to copy data but once you start the transfer the drive would just lose power. In this case I booted to MSDaRT with the drive connected, went to the MSDaRT menu, file explorer and simply copied the files across. There must have been less strain put on the drive as I recovered 100% of the data.

Sometimes the head gets stuck on a platter, I usually try this as a last resort when the drive makes strange noises. I open the top (ideally you would have a clean room for this but do it in a non-dusty environment) and if the head is stuck on the platter gently rotate the platter by using a torx bit in the middle of it whilst working the head away with gentle force. Make sure you spin the platter in the right direction, use youtube videos.

If the drive is recognised by bios but the above don't work then I wrote a tut that is a sticky in the PC section about data recovery with testdisk or photorec.

If you need all the data I would try getting an image of the disk using something like clonezilla, if only parts are vital I would try file-based recovery first then image, then try for the less critical data.

[emu]

i got a wierd one my 1tb drive works on my lg tv when plugged into usb and works in linux

as soon as i plug it into windows 8 it shows up in device manager but cant read the drive

wierd

[evilsatan]

What does it show as in disk management? Raw or a format? Might need to be marked as active, initialised or assigned a drive letter manually.

[adam30]

its a portable hard drive with at least 5 gb of data that i really need and about 70gb of movies, yes it does make a noise when plugged just as if it was working! When working a white light would appear now the light is blue - not sure what that means, have email toshiba but still waiting on a reply!

[evilsatan]

Strange with the light. Obv file-based recovery is your first port of call. Are all the vital files in a few folders? Take a look at my Testdisk thread as that has saved me a few times by copying specific folders off a dying drive.

[David B]

The blue light on Toshiba drive usually means it's plugged in to USB3 white is USB 2, are your usb3 drivers installed? maybe worth trying in another usb2 port

[adam30]

Thank u guys for the replies - was just the drivers! ddoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

[adam30]

Just for ref information, the the toshiba hd have a 2 year warranty so new one has now arrived!