Hello all HDD guru..

I had some problem with WDC my passport 1tb USB HDD which is filled with mostly my work (it about 681Gb Data, 5 year work). Firstly it became raw (its falling), i try to backup the RAW data (i have experience with RAW HDD before), but since i very busy, i just doing halfway (its about 26hour scanned using EASEUS),planned to do recover later.

Yesterday, when i want to recover, the hdd is detected, but suddenly my laptop is not responding. after restarted again, hdd cannot detected SMART. iam using Windows 7 x64

today the condition is :
a. HDD is shown in bios,
b. show in Acronis but say SMART not recognized, it grey colored status
c. not shown in EASEUS,
d. Shown in device manager
e. not shown in disk manager
f. try to connect to other computer wich is using windows 7 x86, it had same response
g. HDD is spinning normally, the LED keep blinking as HDD being detected.

my question is: is my work in that WDC passport is can be retrieved again? how about SMART is not being recognized, can that undoable so i can retrieve some data to another HDD?

Thank you for advance...

I think the heads on the drive has finally failed completely. The data should be recoverable, if media damage did not happen on the spinning disks, but the drive will have to be sent to a recovery company for assessment. My bet is that it will need new read and write heads.

Shane

Thank you shane for fast response, ill try to send it to some recovery company, my last experience in here, some company will cost around IDR 3 mill / $300 only to recover Hdd from RAW (Very Expensive IMHO)... but if that case the head is failed thats no other option since i cant fix it by myself.

its always best to keep a backup of all the things that can't be downloaded of the internet. but I know how easy it is not to bother.

Shane

I cringe everytime I read stuff like this. I cant afford the $1000 or so right now to buy around 10TB of HDD space to backup all my years of collecting, work and pictures etc. I wonder how people are really going to cope with backing up given the larger file sizes for everything. a lot of our cameras are taking > 20MB pictures each. it is time consuming to edit and keep in any type of structure, especially if you have done it from the start and are going to try with 1,000's of pictures already.

Cloud storage is not in my option list, due to security, slow internet and feasibility concerns.

work is sorted, but home I contribute around 20% max of the data, so training family is also an issue.

I wonder how many of us would honestly not be at all concerned to have their hard disks completely die with no chance of recovery.

The one thing I would like see change is that when something that does have years of work on it die, they unlucky person goes to a DR place, pay their dues, get their data and then make sure from then on they set themselves up with a good back up plan. There are too many cases of people making it worse.

of course if you definitely are not going to a DR company, try anything, and accept the risks, and learn something in the process.

I learned to do backups when I was in like the 4th or 5th grade. I had written an incredibly huge end-of-quarter term paper all about the F-15 jet and some futuristic electronics stuff. I made some sort of error thinking I had it saved, when in reality it was not. I lost the whole 500+ word report and had to spend the whole weekend indoors redoing it from beginning.

Since then I've learned to save multiple times throughout a project. And then make multiple copies on different media.

I don't do that saving and multi-copy practice as much now, hardware is more reliable, and I know more now than I did in 5th grade. But make no mistake I still conduct semi-regular backups of all the computer files in the house.

For example, if that CrypoLocker malware thing got into my systems, here, now, today, I wouldn't be upset. I'd haul out the restore discs and away we go!

_________________
On a clear disk you can seek forever.

I'm not sure how other people organize their photos, or what programs, if any, they use. But I do know that Adobe LightRoom is used by many professionals.

I seem to recall the photo organizers that seemed popular around the time of the dotcom boom were far too tedious. It took a ton of effort to even figure out how the damned things worked! So, I forget about all that and take a different route. I tend to organize my photos in a simple folder structure, and all I need is the built-in Windows Picture Viewer and Windows Explorer.

I'm not afraid to use Notepad to write a brief description that is searchable, nor am I afraid to assign a number/name/date to the folders. This is probably the most non-proprietary method one can come up with. Been doing this since I learned the concept of Directories & Folders in the early Apple //e ProDos and PC MS-DOS days.

I use FreeFileSync and DirSync to effect file-based backups from time to time. I also keep a copy of IrfanView and XnView at the ready to do conversions and handle the oddball picture I may get from someone else or from me digging through my 8-bit Apple II and Amiga classic computing paraphernalia. They're also good for resizing and converting screenshots and stuff like that.

One thing I do know, people need to be aware of what files actually are, and how you can move them from place to place and make copies of them. This concept of files is seemingly becoming more obscure as the general public transitions into cloud storage and apps on tablets. If something goes wrong in this new-age ecosphere of tablets and touch - your screwed. Where’s ma’files?

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On a clear disk you can seek forever.

i Have contact local recovery company,..I hope they can retrieve that hardisk, around $300-$400 they mention it (3x-4x times of HDD price itself). i got lesson here,since i travel across country very often, i should make backup at home and give external HDD "protection case".

thats 681Gb data of work and copy of original sofware which is costly around $4000 , master copy was gone after masive eruption at 2010... (burned by pyrocloud of Merapi Mountain),

The cost of recovery and the cost of the hard disk have nothing at all to do with each other.

a $400 recovery is quite good and I would be happy.

yeah 400$ if a head is failing is very good price.
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