My 2TB hitachi external hard drive stopped working :(

[bensjjjammin]

So i accidentally nudged this ext hard drive off my chair, and now it clicks and it cant load to computer. I have lots of important data im missing. OUCH ,i know.

Im Just google searching how i can recover my data from this. Im looking at site called www.salvagedata.com. do you think its legit? or should i be taking it elsewhere. please let me know. thanks.

 

[Jonathan20022]

I'm not against data recovery specialists and their services, but I've found the case after running a business and having to send out harddrives to authorized specialists that typically it's cheaper to find some software, find a decent computer to churn and burn through that HDD and recover as much as you can yourself. That's not always possible, but if you have the resources and time give it a shot yourself. Just don't go expecting to recovery everything you have, whatever gets recovered got recovered there's nothing more anyone can do.

We offered Data Recovery ourselves with our rig when we had our shop, but found it to be too much of a hassle for me and our folks to assume responsibility for lost data. There's a couple of agencies we outsourced to whenever a job like that would show up and we just took a small cut of the service charge and let them handle it.

 

[Vyn]

Probably looking at $700 - $1000 USD for a good data recovery job. It's not cheap by any means. It's a time and resource consuming process with no guarantee of results and on top of that the people who are good at it a) know they are good at it and b) will charge you as such.

 

[Nlelith]

While I can't give any recovery advice, I would suggest to setup a backup for all your crucial data. I myself use "Bvckup 2", which I think is brilliant and quite possibly my best software purchase ever + I had to buy 4TB HDD for actual backup space, but it might not be necessary for some people, depending on how much free drive space you already have and how hefty is data you consider important.

 

[Adieu]

Data or audio/video stuff?

Many audio video formats are playable and indistinguishable if mildly corrupted... and still mostly salvageable if corrupted on a large scale.

Executables and spreadsheets, otoh, don't fare so well.

Regarding giving up hard drives to service people, remember that anything they DO fish out WILL fall into their hands

Passwords, saved payment information, "home videos", stuff the FBI might frown on.... etc.


PS your case sorta sounds less like corruption, and more like it's mechanically fooked. Which MAY mean surgery, not data recovery, is the name of the game. Might be simple like a busted connector , might be shattered inside and totally screwed.

 

[Forest of October]

Most HDD companies (Seagate, etc.) offer low-level diagnostic software to help troubleshooting these kinds of problems. Try to find one for your HDD (from the manufacturers site) and run it, it may give you a better idea what went bad. There is also something called SMART test (all HDDs support that), which is more generic, but usable if there is no OEM-specific tool.

https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/

 

[Alex79]

Often the drive header/interface thingy fails first, not the actual drive. Try a different HDD Adapter first, it might save you a lot of money/trouble.

 

[bensjjjammin]

thx for replies, yea im not tech savvy at all... lol. I really wouldnt know how to open it myself and even make an attempt to save it. So i had no choice but to send it to salvage. I use Reaper as my DAW and have my latest 2 albums project files in there. This is definitely a lesson to be learned. I just backed up my computer to a Cloud site. I organized my project files from my older hard drive. I really thought i had at least backed up my 2nd latest album to my 500gb seagate one i have now, but i cant find that albums files in there which sucks. Crossing my fingers..... i really hope i get my data back.

 

[gunshow86de]

I skimmed the thread title about a Hitachi not working and expected a very different thread...

 

[dreamchaser]

Prevention is always the best protection. Get yourself a backup HDD and frequently copy data over to it. What OS do you use? Windows 10?

 

[CapinCripes]

The clicking noise you describe indicates mechanical failure. Most likely of the read write head. opening it yourself would risk further damage to the drive and your data as best practice requires the use of a clean room environment when dealing with HDD internals. Data recovery services will be extremely expensive and its up to you to decide if your data is worth it. There is a reason why the first thing IT professionals do before working on client computers is back up the data as recovery is expensive and not guaranteed. Companies have gone under from data loss alone. I would definitely recommend some kind of backup for all important data going forward, a HDD is far less expensive than trying to pick up the pieces of your data.

EDIT: just realized this thread is several months old. Was there any data recovery accomplished? Guess my response is more toward others who may experience this problem then.

 

[toner]

Backblaze is $5/month you should get that I love having the extra backup (on top of my freenas home server).