Hi all,

Just wanting some advice on what to do next. Got a 1TB drive wd elements external (bought in 2009) that has just failed on me (power outage i think).
Anyway, i took it out of the enclosure and connected to laptop. It spins up fine, no clicking or anything but fails to initialize. Message comes up about data error crc. Is this likely to be firmware corruption? Am I also right in guessing that replacing the pcb will do nothing at all and if so, can anyone recommend any data recovery pros in the uk? It has 2 partitons, one being a truecrypt encrypted one, will this complicate the recovery process at all?

Thanks

Contact with Sean an this forum with nick pcimage.

he can help you

Drive likely has bad sectors and/or head damage. PCB isn't likely the issue. You're right to go to a pro.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

You can remove the drive from its enclosure and connect it to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard. That may help to narrow down the problem.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. Already connected to sata port on pc, nothing showing up even in bios. Looks like a job for the pros. Dont like the idea of sending my drive away or paying the high costs but it looks like I have no choice.

I have had various quotes and explanations to whats wrong based on the systoms to corrupted firmware/microcode, bad sectors and heads, and the quotes ranging from £100 to £500+. Its hard to pick a company to go for.

sub

Could be anything one of the above, or a combination of them. The price range seems plausible, depending on the actual fault and time/parts involved to recover the data.

It's like calling a garage and saying "my car is broken, how much will it cost to fix it?"

We offer a free examination and subsequent quote, with an average cost of around £250+VAT if it's not a physical issue (e.g. Heads). If it turns out that it's more serious than expected and so out of budget, then we just charge a small admin/shipping fee to return the drive.

Should be able to offer an hddguru discount too

Email or PM me if interested.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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