A few months back, I posted a thread about some issues with my two external hard drives. http://mnsubaru.com/threads/external-hard-drive-repair.41855/ 1. I went back and forth on trying to repair the WD on my own, but it makes me terribly nervous. This is the last place that I have many of these photos saved, and do not want to risk losing them. Does anyone have a recommended computer repair shop that they could direct me to that would be willing to help in this endeavor? 2. I am in the market for a new printer. Now that I am full time teaching and a full time student, I need something more reliable than my 7 year old freebie that has nearly bit the dust. As far as my hopes for the machine, I would like something with a wireless option, that will copy and scan, would be good on ink/affordable cartridges, and most of all reliable. If it is good with light amounts of photo printing that would always be a plus. I know next to nothing when it comes to printers, and I am trying to educate myself on them. We are an Apple home, so compatibility with Apple devices is a must. As always, any advice and guidance is greatly appreciated! Thanks! JuStaWRX
Here are a couple of links for you. Kroll OnTrack is one of the best and top rated places there is for hard drive recovery, but it is very expensive. You can get a quote on their website just by entering a little information. http://www.krollontrack.com/ As far as printers go, I have this model and absolutely love it. http://store.apple.com/us/product/HA921LL/A/epson-workforce-wf-2540-all-in-one-printer Not sure how it does with pictures, as i have never done them from my home printer, i just go to walmart or target and print them from the kiosks.
You don't need Ontrack unless the drive itself is borked. First things first: How far did you get in pulling the hard drive out of the enclosure? It's really very easy. Just undo some screws and it's out. Then put it into a new enclosure or use something like the USB cable I linked in that other thread of yours. I can guide you over PM if you like. Printers, I will always recommend avoiding ink like plague. For cost and reliability get a multicolor laser, and send your photos out. Plenty of options like snapfish, mpix, or shutterfly, target, walmart, etc. Apple compatibility, can't help you there as I'm not an Apple guy.
Is the external drive a SSD or HDD? You can look into Seagate Recovery Services. They can recovery some of the data for you. PM me if you need help with it.
Regardless if the drive is external or internal it can be plugged into another functional OS. all you need is a IDE/SATA/or eSATA (not sure how old your drive is) those cables will usually come with an adapter that plugs into usb so it can power it from the computer and read via PnP usb. Unless, as mentioned by sneefy if the drive is borked. Unless its actually corrupted, or you physically destroyed the drive.... you got a good chance of recovering the data.
Your best bet is to remove the drive from the enclosure and connect it directly to a desktop PC (or Mac, if it's a Mac formatted drive). There are about a million recovery tools available, always try a simple copy first and move on to actual recovery tools next.
File systems on mac are pretty friendly with any windows oriented machine. Unless were talking linux ...
I find the opposite is generally true. Mac OS can read FAT and NTFS (and write FAT) no problem but Windows has no native support for HFS+ so you need 3rd party software there.
Well that's a bummer. I've toyed around with macs, but not extremely proficient as others may be. Linux, and windows on the other hand... Not sure if OP specified what operating system he was running?
Agreed MAC is a PITA when it comes to file systems. If its a HDD I'd thread CAREFULLY about just plugging it in with a USB adapter. If the file system is just corrupt then no problem. If one of the drive head crashed into the disk surface, powering it up would be slitting your own wrists... down the road not across the street. Seagate can still recover some data from physically crashed drives. Hence the price tag.
Thank you all. I appreciate the help. There are actually two EXTERNAL drives in question. One, a WD where the physical USB port on the back side is broken. I don't presume anything actually wrong with the files. The second is a G-Drive that clicks and is not readable... that one makes me more nervous for the technical problems... It is for a Mac OS. @sneefy I am going to try and order the kits that you suggested in the previous thread. If you don't mind, I may take you up on the offer to walk me through it. I really appreciate that!
If it's the G-Drive I think you're talking about, then both that and the Western Digital are just hard drives in enclosures. If the G-Drive clicks or is making odd sounds, that's the one to worry about, as you said. Clicking sounds are usually not good. I have seen failed enclosures that caused the drive to make clicking sounds because they simply failed to power the drive properly, though, so hope is not lost yet. We'll find out. That cable adapter I linked should work if the drives are good. You just need to get them out of the enclosures to find out. I'd be happy to offer what I can over PM to help you through it. One point of advice if I may, regardless of what happens with the drives in question, redundancy is what you want to be concerned with in the future. Backups of your backups. Easy to not think about before something happens. If the files and photos are important, and I know mine are, have multiple copies in multiple locations. A mirrored NAS from a company like Synology isn't a big expense for home use either. Or, put the critical stuff in the cloud. Plenty of backup services like Carbonite or Crashplan or storage services like Box or Dropbox are available.
For printer get a Brother laser. Color or black and white whatever you want. They are cheap and reliable and the toner cartridges are not crazy expensive.
Just got my Black Widow Hard disc docking station in the mail (as suggested from the previous thread). Now, my hope is that today or tomorrow I will do the diss assembly of the broke WD My Book (for Mac). Does this video seem right? My other thought was if I could reconnect the broken USB port somehow, see if that would still work? That was the initial problem with this HD is that the USB port on the back broke. and is now inside the casing..
If that's the model WD you have, I see no reason why that video wouldn't be right. As for the USB port, it's likely that it broke off of the small board you can see that is part of the enclosure. If it's it's just bent, it may still work, but if you have the new Black Widow dock, just plug the bare drive into that.
