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It sucks when your portable HDD dies exactly when you're going to back it up.

SunnyD

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Last night, I plug in my portable HDD, just a little USB 2.5" 60GB drive. It has a bunch of things on it, notably all my MP3's and whatnot. I don't remember exactly what else, but it had maybe 50GB worth of files on it.

"Windows was unable to load the drivers for this device..."

WTF. Unplug, replug, nothing. Different USB port, nothing. :| Check LDM, maybe drive letters got screwed up... nope. :| :|

Okay, so I take it to work today thinking maybe Win7 RC1 just didn't like it. Try it on an XP machine, cause I want to listen to some muzak at work today. Nothing. :| !!! I notice that it's making a nice short range high pitch squeal... great. I'm guessing the drive is toast.

What was lost: a could gig of MP3's, a bunch of large files that I hate redownloading (MS TechNet stuff mostly), some older documents and email archives, and who knows what else. Do I have a previous backup? Nope. I was thinking this week that I needed to back it up, and that's what last night's goal was. Fuck me.

Cliffs:
- SunnyD's portable HDD that houses his MP3 collection and various other backed up things died.
- Fuck.

Updated:
Realized I had a different USB cable on it than I normally used (USB powered drive too). Figured I'd wait till I got home to use the real cable... still no dice. Removed the enclosure, reseated the connectors, nothing. Wiggled and wobbled the drive, still nothing other than motor reset noises. Turned the drive upside down... LOE! Ye drive spinith upith! 43gb of data has been copied off successfully to the NAS for safe keeping.
 
🙁
rose.gif
 
Could just be the USB/power circuitry of the casing. Pop the drive out and try it with a separate USB adapter. Good luck.
 
Originally posted by: Rockinacoustic
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Originally posted by: I Saw OJ
Wait, you backup your portable HDD on your main computer?
Click to expand...

No, I would have been backing it up to my NAS.
Click to expand...

So you have no older NAS backups and don't store your music on your main computer?
Click to expand...

I just got my NAS up and running a couple weeks ago, and I don't store archive data on my main computer because my main computer gets wiped for reinstalls frequently.
 
Throw it the freezer for a while, then try to recover your data. If you do it let me know if it works. I have heard about this for years but never had to try it, just curious to know if it does work. hard drive recovery

Edit added link.
 
Originally posted by: notposting
Could just be the USB/power circuitry of the casing. Pop the drive out and try it with a separate USB adapter. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Or skip all that and hook it right up to an IDE/SATA connector.

 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: notposting
Could just be the USB/power circuitry of the casing. Pop the drive out and try it with a separate USB adapter. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Or skip all that and hook it right up to an IDE/SATA connector.
Click to expand...

It's a 2.5" pata drive, I don't have the appropriate power connector for it.
 
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: notposting
Could just be the USB/power circuitry of the casing. Pop the drive out and try it with a separate USB adapter. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Or skip all that and hook it right up to an IDE/SATA connector.
Click to expand...

It's a 2.5" pata drive, I don't have the appropriate power connector for it.
Click to expand...

The adapters are cheap. I used to use a regular "USB->IDE" adapter plus the "40 pin IDE and 4 pin molex" to laptop adapter and that worked fine. Now I have the 3 in 1 USB adapter. Geeks.com usually has it but apparently not right now. Get something cheap off ebay. Bonus feature is the cool markings from it being shipped from Hong Kong.
 
It's alive!!! Barely.

I noticed I wasn't using the same USB cable I normally was using, so I tried the correct one when I got home and heard the drive spin up. Still wasn't detected when plugged into the NAS though, so I tried it on my desktop. Wouldn't spin up, was in a reset cycle. Took the drive out of the enclosure, replugged it into the USB->IDE connector, still nothing. Shook the drive a bit, tilted it, nothing. Turned it upside-down, and it's currently copying all the data to the NAS... WHEW! Only 43GB left to go...
 
Thank god it worked out! What were you going to do without that ripped copy of "Anal loving Asian Amputees 4" ?
 
That happened to me not long ago. I backed everything up to my 2nd drive, formatted my main drive and put in a dual boot install with partitions. Halfway through copying everything back to the main drive afterward, kaput. No warning or anything, one minute it was fine the next it was dead. Freezer trick didn't work. Lesson learned :|
 
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