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Portable hard drive failure (1 Viewer)

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Marcus Conway - ebirder

Well-known member
Been away for a few weeks and backed up my images onto a seagate 500gb expansion drive. It stopped working on the third use :C It makes a beeping noise and is not recognised by the laptop or the computer - any ideas?
 
Marcus Conway - ebirder said:
Been away for a few weeks and backed up my images onto a seagate 500gb expansion drive. It stopped working on the third use :C It makes a beeping noise and is not recognised by the laptop or the computer - any ideas?
Click to expand...

I had exactly the same problem with the same device. Send it back. I wont be touching one again.I havent managed to recover my images im afraid (not that there were any worth keeping in my case)
 
I've been making a lot of beeping noises as well... just back from 12 days in Wester Ross, never seen so much wind and rain.

No seriously, a lot of the big suppliers of external drives recommend the more expensive units such as Lacie and G-Tech, although so far (touch wood) I've not had any problem with a Seagate 1TB I bought at Christmas.

Always pays to have a second copy somewhere else!!

Andy (West Midlands)
 
Marcus Conway - ebirder said:
Been away for a few weeks and backed up my images onto a seagate 500gb expansion drive. It stopped working on the third use :C It makes a beeping noise and is not recognised by the laptop or the computer - any ideas?
Click to expand...

I hope you still have the originals. This does not sound good. Are you using Windows or Mac?

Alan
 
Am on windows, do not have the originals - how far back can I recover from a Sandisk once formatted and reused?

Googling seems to suggest this is a fault with the portable drive due to power to the drive?
 
Last edited:
If you are prepared to sacrifice your warranty to get at the data you can dismantle the drive and temporarily install the hard drive - which will have standard full-size or laptop-size connectors - into either your main pc or into a newly purchased portable drive case (c. £15).

It's pretty easy to do. I had the same problem with my Seagate portable drives. I'm still using the same hard drives but in new enclosures.

All the above assumes you haven't mistreated the drive - they don't bounce - believe me I've tested it!

Dave
 
Dave.Farrant said:
... install the hard drive - which will have standard full-size or laptop-size connectors - into either your main pc or into a newly purchased portable drive case (c. £15).
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, there have been some 'modified' drives fitted into enclosures in recent years, where the standard USB connector has been built-in to the drive controller board, doing away with the SATA connector and thus the ability to connect directly to a computer or into a 'standard' external case. Here's a picture, WD My Passport with an R/N of "BBB" on the retail packaging (there may also be others): http://blog.wisefaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/WesternDigitalMyPassportDriveUSBInterface.jpg Steer well clear of them!

I don't think that's the scenario here, I've not read that Seagate have used that type of drive.
 
James Thomas said:
Ouch! Don't think Sandisks recovery works after a reformatting. Probably worth getting in touch with a specialist, this one has a no recovery no fee type http://www.datarecoverylondon.co.uk/index.html

Before replacing it a solid state drive might suit your requirements better, much smaller size but 64Mb for under £100 isn't bad.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jim. Fortunately only last about 15gb of images but still gutted as I had some nice images. The bugger went as I was backing up onto CD (after I had formatted and reused the card). But now worried about my separate seagate terabyte back ups at home in case they go
 
I've had 2 Seagate external drives die on me - both were due to the internal sata to usb circuitry flipping out because of overheating. A simple remedy (as Dave.Farrant explains) is to pull the drive from the caddy and stick it in a new one. Amazon is a good source for cheap usb caddies
 
Marcus
may be worth trying some of the free recovery software, or one of the specialist companies, on the off chance they can pull the data off.

Cheers

Phil
 
Well I was going to suggest that my Iomega Prestige 1TB drives might be better off for you but after reading up some google hits on them I'm completely dismayed as it seems Iomega have seriously lousy customer service and quite a few of these drives have failed. Are there any external hard drives out there that have a proven track record for reliability or are all of them as hopeless as each other. Really pisses me off that us, the everyday consumers upon which all these companies depend, are being ripped off left, right and centre with virtually every single product or service we pay for. You just can't trust anyone or anything in this day and age!
I feel your pain mate. It's unlikely I'll recover most of my images from last year off my old computer hard drive as I suspect that is what failed. Fell behind with my backing up, that was a lesson learned the hard way!

Oh and I think James is right if you format your card you erase the data which is not the same as if you merely erase (delete) all images on a card. Once a card has been formatted for a specific camera you should probs avoid doing it again unless you maybe get some corrupted images like I got not so long ago. Was pretty gutted about that too, most of the images coming out of the memory card were a complete mess.
 
I have a Seagate and no issues so far but I always have a back up hard drive too....I just back up everything twice, just in case.
 
If you can connect the drive directly into a recent PC, you'll rule out any USB driver issues and stand a slightly better chance of Windows or 3rd party recovery software being able to access the drive.

TestDisk and PhotoRec would be my choice for trying to get the data recovered from the drive or the SDcard. Even if the drive or card's been formatted, it's quite possible to recover much of the old data.
 
Thanks.

I was backing up from the drive to CD went it happened as I was in the field. I was in a rush and had reuse the memory cards (despite carrying 40GB with me). At home I have two terabyte discs and a separate RAID environment, I also have a separate back up at a family location. So I normally back up 4 times just in case...
 
Problematical and awkward, how much back up systems should one need? Arguably at least two external hard drives may be the optimum solution. But in Marcus's case he was in the field so in reality he did not need to back up just use more memory cards and on his own admittance was in a rush!

Back at the ranch there is an alternative to external hard drives and that is back up photos etc to a blu ray disc which hold 25 gb of data and currently on Amazon are costing about about a £1 a disc of course one has to invest in a blu ray writer/player. Archived photos may be safer on a blu ray disc though!
 
May I just offer an observation. It strikes me that most of the failures of these kinds of devices is because of overheating, commonly cos of people doing too much in one go me thinks (one review from a guy said he was backing up 700GB when it happened. Coincidence?). Now this sounds like a very easy 'flaw' with these hard drives to overcome. Don't back up massive wads of data in one go, ie back up some and turn the drive off for 10 mins and then do a little more. Alternatively if you are going to do a lot in one go then why not set up a fan on it to help it cool down a bit when it's in use and of course make sure it is already sited in a well ventilated spot. Lastly and most obviously, don't leave these drives on unless you are actually using them. I think a little common sense in the approach to using these drives from the masses of people who've posted those negative reviews could have probs avoided the vast majority of those failures.
 
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