my EHD is dead...I think. LOL

[babyofmine]

It turns on, but my computer doesn't seem to recognize it. I've tried turning off the EHD for a few minutes; then a few days; turning off the computer; trying to force the computer to see it, all to no avail. LUCKILY, this is the EHD with all my "free" stuff on it (my other one has the "purchased" items) so I'm not pulling out my hair, but I am still wanting the stuff!! And NO, I never backed it up. What's killing me, is that for the last several months, I've thought about signing up with Mozy, but never actually did it. ugh! I'm signing up now!!!

Soooo....is my EHD really dead? Can I hire a pro to get the stuff back? And where would I find said pro? Any help is appreciated!

[agarzaldynrd]

OMG!!! I just bought an EHD. So what is Mozy and perhaps i need to do that as well. I have all my stuff, bought and free, together. I am so not computer savy so my new EHD is really getting a work-out.

Sorry I can't answer your question.

[donakat]

You could go to a recovery service--in the phone book, probably under data recovery--but this is probably an expensive option. Sometimes the local computer store where you bought the drive, or where you bought the computer, will be able to pull off the stuff onto another drive or DVDs.
For the least expensive option, use a drive utility (Norton or some such) to see if it can recover the data. You may just have some problem on the technical parts of the drive which allow you to see what's there. Anyway, do that first, before trying anything else. Have another drive plugged in for the recovered files if they don't fit on your computer's internal drive.
I have heard Mozy's a good solution, but if you have a lot, you'll have to pay a subscription fee for extra space.

[Debra]

Julie,

I'm not sure if your ehd is dead. However, I experienced the same thing with mine over year ago and yes, it was dead. I took it to best buy who told me it was a goner and said I could pay to have it shipped out to a "clean room" for them to remove my information from it (no guarantee) at a very costly rate ($500+)

Same situation, I had all kinds of irreplaceable photos on it, my design work as well as my layouts.

How sad..it's still sitting here and I have yet to recover my files..

[ponicedan]

After reading where people have lost all there info on their computers & all the downloads & their external harddrives have crashed, I looked into some programs & found "Carbonite.com". You don't have to do a thing, it does all automatically. It's $50/year but it would cost more to repace everything. Check it out. After I decided to get into digital scrapbooking, I am so relieved to use this on-line service.

[JAB]

YUCK- I know how you feel. I had a hard drive crash a while back...lost ALL my pictures of my kids. I had backed up --all but one year. My daughter's first year...so all those pics ( except what family members had) are gone :( I still get upset when I think about it. Now I have 2 EHD, and lots of back ups and printed copies and everything else I can think of to avoid the situation again....I had not heard of mozy- I will have to look into it.

Good luck..I hope yours isn't dead.

[babyofmine]

Originally Posted by agarzaldynrd

OMG!!! I just bought an EHD. So what is Mozy and perhaps i need to do that as well. I have all my stuff, bought and free, together. I am so not computer savy so my new EHD is really getting a work-out.

Sorry I can't answer your question.

Mozy is an online backup, basically. It's $4.95/mo but they offer a discount if you pre-pay for a year or 2 years.

Originally Posted by ponicedan

After reading where people have lost all there info on their computers & all the downloads & their external harddrives have crashed, I looked into some programs & found "Carbonite.com". You don't have to do a thing, it does all automatically. It's $50/year but it would cost more to repace everything. Check it out. After I decided to get into digital scrapbooking, I am so relieved to use this on-line service.

From what I understand, Carbonite doesn't offer backups of External Hard Drives, so they don't offer what I need. I never save anything to my computer, it always goes to the EHD's.

Well, it looks like I won't be able to recover anything from the broken one. Not yet, anyway--way too expensive. I'm just glad that it's not layout or pictures that I lost.

[twirlyjoy]

My EHD failed just over a year ago, and although I had most of my stuff backed up, I didn't have all of it.

I paid to have a technical guy look at it and he scanned it and recovered everything apart from a few blinkies I had saved!

Was worth every penny.

Hope you get your things back!

[ABitDaffy]

Have you tried changing out the USB cable? I had an EHD that I thought was dead that turned out to be just a bad USB connector.

I second going to a local tech guy or, if you have a Best Buy near you, they have the Geek Squad which will work on it (of course, then you'll probably pay a little more). I went to a local guy with 2 dead EHDs (I've had four die on me in the last 18 months) and he was able to pull almost all the data off of one of them (and none off the second). It cost me $15.00.

And here's something about EHDs that the tech guy told me that I found interesting. The casings for EHDs are typically very weak and oftentimes it's the connectors in the case that go bad, not necessarily the drive itself (this isn't true if you hear an awful clicking sound - that usually means the drive itself is toast). He said what he recommends doing is buying an Internal Hard Drive and a plastic case and mounting the IHD inside the case and making a defacto EHD. That way, if something goes wrong with the connector, all you have to do is pop it out and stick it in another case (and cases are cheap, under $20.00). That was the way he was able to save the data off my drive. Just broke the original case, popped it into a connector that he had and pulled the data off.

Now, you can send it to one of those data recovery places, but, like Debra said, they're very expensive. But, since you just have freebies on there, I'd try letting a local guy (or girl) take a look and see if anything's retrievable.

[babyofmine]

Originally Posted by ABitDaffy

Have you tried changing out the USB cable? I had an EHD that I thought was dead that turned out to be just a bad USB connector.

I second going to a local tech guy or, if you have a Best Buy near you, they have the Geek Squad which will work on it (of course, then you'll probably pay a little more). I went to a local guy with 2 dead EHDs (I've had four die on me in the last 18 months) and he was able to pull almost all the data off of one of them (and none off the second). It cost me $15.00.

And here's something about EHDs that the tech guy told me that I found interesting. The casings for EHDs are typically very weak and oftentimes it's the connectors in the case that go bad, not necessarily the drive itself (this isn't true if you hear an awful clicking sound - that usually means the drive itself is toast). He said what he recommends doing is buying an Internal Hard Drive and a plastic case and mounting the IHD inside the case and making a defacto EHD. That way, if something goes wrong with the connector, all you have to do is pop it out and stick it in another case (and cases are cheap, under $20.00). That was the way he was able to save the data off my drive. Just broke the original case, popped it into a connector that he had and pulled the data off.

Now, you can send it to one of those data recovery places, but, like Debra said, they're very expensive. But, since you just have freebies on there, I'd try letting a local guy (or girl) take a look and see if anything's retrievable.

umm...then this thing is toast. For several days before it quit, it made the clicking sound.
Well, I will try anyway with a local guy that I just remembered.