Hard drive data loss help required

[johnbower]

Hi
Could anyone please help or advise me. I have a 500gb western digital mybook. All of a sudden it disapeared from my computer. I have tried unpluging it and pluging it in to other usbs and at one point i could see the drive and access and play a file from it but now it has just disapeared again. When the drive was showing i went into disk managment and the drive was showing the status was healthy but under system their was nothing.
Pluging and unpluging the drive eventualy got it recognised in one of the usbs but i could not access it i had an i/o error message. When i try hardware wizard it says no driver code 31 but this is a plug and play so i have no driver to install.
Does anyone know how i can retrieve the data from my hard drive and how much this would cost. I have lost some very precious data and am really quite in a panic. Any help would be really appreciated.

 

[Upholder]

The first step you should take is to try it in another computer just to make sure it's your ext hdd where the problem lies..

If it is the drive, then it'll be one of 2 things. 1) The HDD has failed or 2) The Mybook sys board has failed. I've worked on other external devices and in my experience option 2 is normally the culprit. I would contact WD support to find out your options, not sure how good their customer support service is, but I've returned gear to other companies who have repaired ext hdd's without data loss & free of charge (even when out of warranty).

WD Support: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1

As a last resort you could try removing the hdd yourself and connect it using another caddy.
I use this: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=48965&doy=10m5
There are others available and probably cheaper, however I've made a lot of people very happy because of it..

Good luck.

 

[johnbower]

Thanks
I can't try it in another computer. I am not really that great with computers so do not really think i could do anything with it and it is out of waranty with western digital who i have tried to contact with no luck at all.
I need some other soloution if at all possible but thanks and if you have any other ideas please let me know.

 

[blossom]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here but I have had a similar problem with a Maxtor Exrernal HDD. All of a sudden it just failed. I ahd only had it about a month from Maplins and had transferred a load of personal stuff on there like family photos and videos and stacks of MP3's from my main PC who's HDD had become full. I didn't unfortunately back it up so it is stuck on this HDD and I cannot get to it.

Maplins gave me my money back and I asked them to return the HDD to me to see if I could get the content off it as they didn't want to know.

I have tried everything. It has been taken to bits by IT specialist company and tried to fire it up by connecting the disc to a different computer directly but nothing recognises it.

I have been told that to access the content I need to find a specialist data recovery service / company but this will cost a fortune. It will probably means taking the actual discs out in a clean room etc - like the police do when they are looking through dodgy peoples computers etc.

I would also be very grateful if any one might be able to help me also.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Paul

 

[badbob]

Take the HD out of the enclosure, and use the SATA/IDE controllers on your otherboard. The chipset in the enclosure could be faulty, but the HD is fine.

 

[blossom]

Take the HD out of the enclosure, and use the SATA/IDE controllers on your otherboard. The chipset in the enclosure could be faulty, but the HD is fine.

OK mate will try this tomorrow. It's at work.

Cheers

Paul

 

[badbob]

Never a good idea to trust Maxtor hard drives with non recoverable and important data. Worst reliability brand of hard drives.

 

[mjn]

Does anyone know how i can retrieve the data from my hard drive and how much this would cost. I have lost some very precious data and am really quite in a panic. Any help would be really appreciated.

Sounds broken to me. I would get it replaced if it is under warranty, and restore your data from a backup disc / DVD.