Recovering data from external

Have a friends two 1TB external HDD's (LaCies) here as he asked me if I could get them going ? One is working fine the other is dead as - now the problem is how are we going to retrieve the data contained on the dead one. By dead I mean it doesn't spin up and I cannot find anyway of opening the enclosures to see if there are dry joints on the power in side.


I think he has a lot of pics and videos on it and as the one that is going is almost full I am thinking this one would be too.

Any ideas anyoen please?

ibshaw said:

Unfortunately, the only way you will find out if its the drive itself is to somehow get the casing open and try it in another enclosure, on the assumption you have swapped cables and ports etc.

Thanks ibshaw ok mate I shall have to get onto the owner and see if I can break the case cos I reckon the only way in is with a hammer and screwdriver LOL!!

The case looks to me to be sealed shut as I can find no obvious clips so I guess he will either agree to that or lose the lot unless a tech shop can do something.

John even if you manage to remove the drive from the enclosure you may find it has no standard drive inside. It may be a part of its case and have everything soldered together.

After trying the steps ibshaw laid out and it doesn't spin up, I would think its dead and gone along with the blokes data.

If you cannot open the casing, try the Geek Squad at your local BestBuy. Maybe they have an idea.

Taking it out of the casing will only help if the controller is dead or if it does not get power. But if the motor is dead, that will not help.

No Best Buy in Australia Wolfgang.

Whats the make and model of the external enclosure?

Britton30 said:

No Best Buy in Australia Wolfgang.

I guess you are right. But they probably have a similar shop.

Anthony said:

Whats the make and model of the external enclosure?

LaCie and I cannot make out any model although I could plug one in and use Speccy to "see it".

Inside is a Hitachi HD T721010SLA360