cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Hi, One of the teaching staff dropped her Seagate portable hard drive! It’s not being displayed in windows explorer and only shows up occasionally in disk management! When it does show up in disk management it shows as “unassigned”. I have tried running the Seagate data recovery software, but the external drive isn’t displayed at all when I run data recovery software. When the drive does fire up it sounds like a tiny person is inside jumping on a trampoline! I don’t have a clean room so can’t take the drive apart, but it sounds to me like the read-write head is stuck! The teacher has no backups...and there is years of “critical” data on the drive!! Anyone know of a “trustworthy” data recovery company that doesn’t charge hundreds to repair drives? Thanks in advance!
3s-gtech Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Charging hundreds isn't the issue - it's the thousands where it gets a bit eye watering. This is specialist work, it will definitely not be sorted for £50. We've used OnTrack https://www.ontrack.com/en-gb who I was very happy with indeed - but the costs are commensurate with the service. 1
Primus Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Charging hundreds isn't the issue - it's the thousands where it gets a bit eye watering. This is specialist work, it will definitely not be sorted for £50. We've used OnTrack https://www.ontrack.com/en-gb who I was very happy with indeed - but the costs are commensurate with the service. Agreed, data recovery isn't cheap. 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 Thanks agreed. All the teachers have given me over the years is a bottle of wine for IT repairs!! Imagine if they offered a plumber a bottle of wine for fixing a leaking pipe!
3s-gtech Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 I make it pretty clear on personal IT (as this drive would be, if it's hers personally!) - I either do it for free because I like them/it's quick and easy/I'm in a good mood - or they pay my commercial rate (which is eye watering to put them off). 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 (edited) Yes, it is her personal drive. The thing that really drives me nuts at all schools that I have worked, is after fixing their laptop etc that they don’t speak the next time they see me in the corridor!! Never have been able to understand why some are like that. It’s as though once you have served your purpose you don’t exist. Maybe it’s just me and the schools where I have worked... Never had much luck taking drives apart, so not sure if it’s even advisable. I think the head is stuck but the connection where the USB cable connects is buggered too!! Edited September 23, 2021 by cheaptonersucks
simpsonj Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 In the past I've acquired the quote for a professional repair and left it with the teacher. It's up to them to decide how critical that data is. 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 Yes, that would make them re-think just how precious that data is to them... I have not met many teachers who ever make a backup of anything! Been used so much over the years I might just start saying I don’t do private work. I have enough wine to open a wine merchants anyway!!
smurfomatic Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Never had much luck taking drives apart, so not sure if it’s even advisable. I think the head is stuck but the connection where the USB cable connects is buggered too!! On this last point, there may be some hope - if you open up the external drive and use a different circuit board, you may find it's the USB connection that's at fault and you can get it working again - at least, for long enough to get the data off. As others have said, beware helping out people and expecting credit. I had a similar situation with a friend a few years back, faulty USB stick. Retrieved the data (literally had to hold the thing at a certain angle for an hour while the data transferred, any slight movement and it stopped working) and copied to a new USB stick. Got a "thanks" - didn't even get the money back I paid for the new memory stick! 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 (edited) Thanks for the advice, I have previously had exactly the same experience where I had to hold a USB sick in certain position to copy the data. I have repaired loads of teachers personal laptops over the years from replacing screens to removing nasty viruses where it wouldn’t even boot!! As they rarely seem to bother with AV in my experience!! Then after several hours of personal time lost, that I can never get back, they give me a bottle of wine!!!!!! I will try and get another board, but the head sounds completely buggered! Will I destroy all chance of recovering the data if I open the case on the drive to reveal the platters? Just don’t want to lose any chance of getting the data back by opening the inner case. Edited September 23, 2021 by cheaptonersucks
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 Anyone hon here experienced in repairing drives. I will give more than a bottle of wine like I normally receive!
3s-gtech Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Don’t open it up. There’s nothing to gain by doing so, and the liability increases on you. Hand it back and say “sorry”. Please don’t get involved. 2
smurfomatic Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Certainly don't open the casing on the drive itself. There is no way this will help, and once it's open it will expose the platters to dust etc. which will only make it worse. 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 23, 2021 Author Posted September 23, 2021 Thanks for the advice. Wish it was an easy fix but as it sounds like internal damage to the head, it’s not something that I can fix. It doesn’t always show up in disk management, and the head is making some strange sounds.
smurfomatic Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 Best option is as @simpsonj said - get some quotes for HD recovery (which will be hundreds of pounds, generally with no guarantee of data recovery) and leave it in the teacher's hands to deal with. 1
DavR Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 There is the possibility that the drive itself might be OK, but it's just the Seagate housing that's damaged. You could try removing the housing, and plugging that drive as a secondary in a desktop PC. Or a USB to SATA bridge kit is always a useful tool to have. Absolutely don't open the sealed drive itself though. On the sidebar of doing private jobs for staff - I only do them as favours to staff I like, and I don't take payment, they'll usually buy me a few beers. This way it's understood to be a favour, not a commercial transaction with any guarantee, the money wouldn't be worth it. Some people I'll just tell to go see their high street computer shop. 1
Primus Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 I notice someone earlier said about a plumber - we had a member of staff we did all sorts for as he seemed a good guy etc. Numerous additional things for his personal IT stuff etc etc. Off he goes out of teaching and into full time work as a sparkie (he'd been training on the evenings). 1 team member asked him for a quote for some electrical work at home - huge quote, way way bigger than any of the other quotes he got. I asked him to quote me for some work and he couldn't even be bothered to do that or give me a quick ring and say what a ballpark figure would be. In summary we're now massively wary of doing anything as a favour as we find people quickly forget and don't ever do favours for us - a shame but the truth. 1
Protec Posted September 23, 2021 Posted September 23, 2021 (edited) If I was in that situation, I'd just say the cost of data recovery service is not viable or a productive use of the IT budget. Of course, I don't know what data is on that drive. If it's all school / work related, I can't imagine it being that important if it's just PowerPoints and stuff like that. If it's personal data then I certainly wouldn't be paying thousands for data recovery, unfortunately. Of course, if it's something simple like a dodgy port which can be wiggled into life and the data extracted, then I'd do that no bother but for drives requiring costly data recovery... it's a no from me! Edited September 23, 2021 by Protec 1
Davit2005 Posted September 24, 2021 Posted September 24, 2021 (edited) I've known data recovery to cost near £1,000 . It was over 12 years back, a software house we used to 3rd party support their customers re-configured the backup to point to local drive for testing on an ePOS system, HDD died, software house picked up bill to get the data recovered. Unless they can pick up the cost to repair I think it will be unfortunately a case of lesson learnt to keep a 2nd copy on USB and/or cloud. It's happened to me many years back before I got into IT, now everything important and photos is on a NAS in RAID with backups going to another NAS on RAID and the cloud. Prob best not get involved as others have said. Edited September 24, 2021 by Davit2005 1
Oaktech Posted September 24, 2021 Posted September 24, 2021 On Track are the only company I've had good experience with. They recovered a 5gb show plot for a west end show for me within 24 hours, but they charged the company nearly 10k to do it. They need to decide what the data is worth. 1
cheaptonersucks Posted September 24, 2021 Author Posted September 24, 2021 Thanks for the advice! As it appears to be a damaged head and not just the bad USB connection, I think that I will pass on this one! The teacher had called a data recovery company but said that they were too expensive and she thought that I could do it for a bottle of wine......... 3
Primus Posted September 24, 2021 Posted September 24, 2021 Thanks for the advice! As it appears to be a damaged head and not just the bad USB connection, I think that I will pass on this one! The teacher had called a data recovery company but said that they were too expensive and she thought that I could do it for a bottle of wine......... 1
DavR Posted September 24, 2021 Posted September 24, 2021 Thanks for the advice! As it appears to be a damaged head and not just the bad USB connection, I think that I will pass on this one! The teacher had called a data recovery company but said that they were too expensive and she thought that I could do it for a bottle of wine......... Data recovery..... it's pretty much one of those simple jobs that most IT bods will do as a quick favour, right? Yeesh. 1
smurfomatic Posted September 24, 2021 Posted September 24, 2021 I'd happily do the job for a bottle of wine. However, it would have to be a very expensive bottle of wine... 1
Protec Posted September 25, 2021 Posted September 25, 2021 How about a Freddo? They get given to staff sometime when they are leftover from the class 1
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