External HDD Dead
 

I had an Iomega exteral HDD which I used to keep all my backups and important data. Well, the drive stopped working and now I have no way of retrieving any of my data ... unless, any of you folks know of a way?

I took the drive out of it's casing and connected it via a usb cable to my computer. I tried first in Ubuntu 10.10 with no luck, and then in Windows XP ... also without success. I would really appreciate it if I could retrieve all of my information off the drive.

Thanks,

Gael.

If the drive is physically dead you are probably out of luck, unless you want to invest serious money on this and take it to a paid data recovery service that can take the info out of the plates.

In any case, you can try to plug the device under linux, then open a terminal window, run "dmesg" and paste the output here. That will be a starting point if anything can be done at all.

If the drive itself is really dead (the motor has stopped working), then the only option I know of would be some kind of data recovery company. If the drive is still spinning or spins intermittently, you could try plugging in the drive and then gently tapping it against the table. Another thing you could try (if the drive is spinning) is to put the drive in the freezer for a few hours. This might be good if you hear a clicking sound in the drive. The cold will cause the drive's parts to contract a little and possibly let it work for several minutes. Hope this helps.

Please do not follow these advices if it is really important or valuable data. You might make thinks worse. Go to a data recovery company, if the data is worth this.