Older External Drive shut down

IrishEyes

Senior Member
Location
Midwest
I have used external drives for precious photos, etc. I have one that shut off on me and I have saved it in hopes
to be able to find someone who can possibly retrieve the last section of files I put on it.
Where/Who is the best place to find someone who can do this if possible.
It won't turn on is the main problem'
 

When you say it doesn't start it just appears dead? Were there power indicator lights? Are they on even if the drive doesn't start? If it's an older spinning hard drive and is not making any sound or vibrations then your options are limited. You can try checking all the cable connections, data and power ( if there is external power brick test that). Also try it in another computer. It could be the power side of it is broken and the drive is fine.

If the problem is the hard drive itself you would really need to send it to a data recovery company. There are a bunch of them but the larger companies can be ridiculously expensive. Thousands of dollars. Honest companies should give free diagnosis BEFORE they give you a quote and a have a no data recovered no cost to you guarantee.

One company that seems to be honest and well reviewed is ...
$300 Data Recovery: Hard Drive, RAID, SSD & Flash Repair in Los Angeles

Call them and see what they can do for you.

Also there is this company which is one of the larger ones but has good reviews and might be worth talking to.
ACE Data Recovery | Hard Drives | RAID | SSD | Apple Mac

Disclaimer: I know nothing about either of these companies and cannot recommend them from personal experience. I found positive reviews for both. They are knowledgeable and in the business of data recovery and are at least worth talking with.

Good luck.
 
When you say it doesn't start it just appears dead? Were there power indicator lights? Are they on even if the drive doesn't start? If it's an older spinning hard drive and is not making any sound or vibrations then your options are limited. You can try checking all the cable connections, data and power ( if there is external power brick test that). Also try it in another computer. It could be the power side of it is broken and the drive is fine.

If the problem is the hard drive itself you would really need to send it to a data recovery company. There are a bunch of them but the larger companies can be ridiculously expensive. Thousands of dollars. Honest companies should give free diagnosis BEFORE they give you a quote and a have a no data recovered no cost to you guarantee.

One company that seems to be honest and well reviewed is ...
$300 Data Recovery: Hard Drive, RAID, SSD & Flash Repair in Los Angeles

Call them and see what they can do for you.

Also there is this company which is one of the larger ones but has good reviews and might be worth talking to.
ACE Data Recovery | Hard Drives | RAID | SSD | Apple Mac

Disclaimer: I know nothing about either of these companies and cannot recommend them from personal experience. I found positive reviews for both. They are knowledgeable and in the business of data recovery and are at least worth talking with.

Good luck.
Thank you, fortunately before I added the last photos on it I had made a back up SD, so it's just maybe 15 photos I am missing. Not sure that is worth the cost. I was thinking maybe it is the AC adapter has went bad. No On light, no noise, nothing. It is an older model, one of the tower kind. I have newer ones the small box, size of a wallet kind now. Thank you very much for your reply!
 

Thank you, fortunately before I added the last photos on it I had made a back up SD, so it's just maybe 15 photos I am missing. Not sure that is worth the cost. I was thinking maybe it is the AC adapter has went bad. No On light, no noise, nothing. It is an older model, one of the tower kind. I have newer ones the small box, size of a wallet kind now. Thank you very much for your reply!
If you can test the AC adapter somehow you could probably get a replacement one cheap. And kudos to you for having more than one backup drive. My family doesn't get it that backup drives fail just like any other drive. You always need a backup backup for the real important stuff. Or get a free cloud account and put it there.
 

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