So we had a big storm and lost power. Our external hd isn't being recognized but is getting power. There a a lot of things I want to recover from it so I guess I could go to a recovery place but there's gotta be something I could do on my end...

Advice?

Look up details on your specific device. Almost certainly it is just a generic SEagate or WD sata hard drive that you can tear out of there and put into a computer for better diagnostics. The enclosure just provides power and a usb/network interface.

Originally Posted by booty

Look up details on your specific device. Almost certainly it is just a generic SEagate or WD sata hard drive that you can tear out of there and put into a computer for better diagnostics. The enclosure just provides power and a usb/network interface.

I've tried to connect it via USB and sata. The both give power to it but nothing on my computer

Its fried. Throw it away. Sorry for your loss.

It is probably the controller card in the enclosure- rip it out like bounty said and try it either with another enclosure or open up your case and hook it up directly

WD used encryption on their external controllers and ripping the hard drive out of the case won't let you read the data by just hooking it straight up to a PC.

that's what I've read anyway.

If it's a seagate drive the data was probably corrupt before the storm, seagate are seriously crap drives now.

fun little tid bit, the newer massive capacity drives that are filled with helium are virtually impossible to recover data from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMtvYnI1gQ

they're welded shut and even if you could cleanly de-lid the drive there's no way to refill the drive afterwords.

Would a surge protector protect a HD from a lighting strike? I don't have one yet, (watching the prices plummet) but was considering having it in a fireproof & waterproof box on a long USB cable, so if the house burnt down it might be ok. Currently I back up by copying content onto multiple PC's.

All that pr0n collecting..

Gillware data recovery, Wisconsin.

Originally Posted by Nmag

Would a surge protector protect a HD from a lighting strike? I don't have one yet, (watching the prices plummet) but was considering having it in a fireproof & waterproof box on a long USB cable, so if the house burnt down it might be ok. Currently I back up by copying content onto multiple PC's.

All that pr0n collecting..

It would cook itself to death. Heat from a fire cant get in... the heat from the motors in the drive cant get out.

You failed the redundancy protocol. I have 3 external hard drives and all have the same info backed up on them. Because I don't trust just one backup and this is why.

a surge protector won't do **** unless you grab one rated for 100+ kA (20us impulse?) and even then it will still probably die if you don't have rods going straight to ground to redirect most of the strike.

lol dat **** is fried falcuck

so fried

So I'd need a USB cable to run out the house wall, to a small concrete bunker a couple metres away. That way if the whole house burned down, the data might survive.

A baby bunker for my external HDD:



Would need to cover it to prevent water getting in, and have a small drain hole. So it would probbaly need to sit on the ground, not in it. I think it would survive the house burning down, and all those fire hoses etc.

Maybe I should make and sell them as a kit. All items included. The adds will pull at peoples heart strings, lost irreplaceable photos.. money to be made!!

Just need a trolley and a masonry drill to install. Conditional discounts available to hot mothers. Time to advertise in expensive areas, where they let stupid housewives run a muck with the hubbies credit card.

Will need to advertise on those morning shows at about 10 am weekdays.

I can smell that money pouring in already.

Find print on quote "It might not work, so piss off if you lose data".

Losing data is actually quite liberating. You realize you don't really need that **** after all.

Good post about the Helium drives. Didn't know about that until now. Watched this video here.
What are Helium Hard Drives? - YouTube

Redundancy is the key. I have a clone drive in my case, and 3 WD USB Passport drives. ArakAtak gets credit for telling us about Beyond Compare4.
Favorite Computer Tool by Flash - Page 2 - TribalWar Forums
Use the Mirror to Right function, back up all your changes. I rotate the 3 WD drives. If one craps out I have 2 more plus the clone drive. I actually dropped one of my WD drives on a tile floor and it quit working. It was still under warranty. They replaced it with a completely different drive, same model.
BC4 web site.
Download Beyond Compare

WD drives come with free back up software, but it's not smart enough to delete old versions of files. Use BC4 instead.

Redundancy IS the key. Bunkers are silly, one blast large enough and boom all your data is lost. Then what you gone do?

I keep one backup drive at the cabin, the other at the beach house.

I have a pretty simple setup using a program called Synkron. There are two schedules that run...

1. Backs up daily from my main terminal to a 2nd PC in the basement
2. Weekly backup from my main terminal to a 3rd PC thats offsite at my office

Piece of mind.

Ok so there are hard recovery companies. What do they do that I could do instead? I don't want them to see nudes of my wife.

Did you try sandpaper yet?