[tech] external hard drive issues

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.
You could buy an exact duplicate drive, replace the circuit board, and see if that works. But that's for an internal HD. If it's a sealed drive I'm not sure. Try it in a different computer to see if it comes up.
 
Put the hard drive into a bowl of rice, inside a microwave, that's inside a freezer. The microwave's power needs to be run neatly out such that the freezer door can shut completely.
 
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?
the thing was hooked up to a PC at the time? could very well be dead. best thing that could happen is your USB port went bad. Can you check another one? Do you have a laptop that you can plug the thing into test?
 
You could buy an exact duplicate drive, replace the circuit board, and see if that works. But that's for an internal HD. If it's a sealed drive I'm not sure. Try it in a different computer to see if it comes up.

hdds have unique firmware that would need to be transferred. If he is lucky, that would mean unseating a firmware chip from the old pcb and soldering it onto the new one.
 
the thing was hooked up to a PC at the time? could very well be dead. best thing that could happen is your USB port went bad. Can you check another one? Do you have a laptop that you can plug the thing into test?
It is a network drive so it was connected to our router. I've tried it on both my wife's computer and mine. When I plug it in the drive spins up. Everything looks correct, except that just it does show up on the computer.
 
Boot from a rescue CD like HDat

HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility

It lets you access and try to repair all sorts of drives.

Obviously don't try to reformat or anything or you will wipe it totally if it isn't already stuffed.

Others to try
Trinity Rescue CD
Trinity Rescue Kit | CPR for your computer

I did have a really nice one that boots to a Linux gui but I cant remember what it was called and it looks like I may have thrown away the disc. It might have been Parted Magic
 
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