Hello,
I have a external hard drive which has stopped working(will not power up) that has a ton of photos of my kids when they were young. I have tried along with a few tech savy people to re power it to get photos off, but to no luck. I was told there is a HDD RW device that can pull the pictures off the disk of the bad unit. Is this true, can you point me in the direction of somebody that can do this type of work? I understand about the use of static free gloves and drill bits to actually remove the disk from its case. It is a Passport. It was only about 4 yrs old when it stopped working. If anybody can help me please do, losing these photos would be a disaster for my wife and I. Thanks, Mark

Hi Mark,
You need to stop thinking about drill bits firstly!
Look for a data recovery company. If the data is as important as what you say, you probably shouldn't attempt to play around with it.
DR pros have quite a few tools that can work with damaged drives, but every operation you do without knowing exactly what you are doing can either increase the chance of losing the data forever, or increase the cost of recovery or both.
There is a very good chance they can recover your memories.

You can take the drive out of its external case and try and run it in a PC, though if it is a Western Digital Passport, it may be encrypted.

You might see some problems on the PCB if you take it apart, you should check under feet/stoppers and lables for screws, or simply prying it gently apart with a spudger.

once it is apart, take some pics and repost some details.

but my strongest advice is to go to a Data Recovery company.

Thanks.......just got off the phone with a local data recovery place, will see what happens. Thanks again.

Make sure its a data recovery company and not a common computer shop...

If the drive doesn't spin, and assuming that it is powered from the USB port, then check the USB connector. Many WD users are reporting connection problems. The fix is to have someone (eg your local TV/AV repair shop) reattach the connector.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks, we have tried all of these options. including a re wire of all power connections......no spin at all.

One other DIY option would be to replace the board and transfer the chip at U12 from patient to donor. That should cost about US$50. I'm assuming that your drive has the USB port integrated onto the drive's own PCB.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I wanted to know if you could direct me on where to purchase such an item for the Passport External HDD

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks so much for your time and answers.......