Hi all,

I'm hoping I can find some advice here, I have a Seagate 1tb external drive, it stopped working about 3 weeks ago. I gave it to a computer shop to see what they might be able to do, they gave me a few options but it's hard to trust someone with photos/videos that I don't want to lose, they gave me the following information on what they could do;
> 1) attempt to trace the fault on the board and repair it, there is always the risk of damage to the drive and loss of data.
> 2) Using other tools and extracting the data without the board.
> We can attempt to recover the data using 1st method followed by 2nd method if 1st one not successful.
> Or just recover the data without repairing the board. From experience this can take 3/7 days and total cost including fault diagnoses will be £220.' I was also told 'We have left the drive connected since my last update, the engineer suggested is best to leave it powered and wait for your decision just in case if does not respond after disconnection, he is reluctant to make a guess and try to touch the board and try the repair option'

I don't want to be suspicious but I know nothing about this, and it's not like going to car mechanic, it's personal stuff that I want recovered.

Thanks,

Mart

Attached image from the back of the drive:

It's the dreaded Seagate DM series, so will be a challenge even for a data recovery pro to deal with. I would suggest telling the repair shop to disconnect and return the drive to you so you can take it directly to a DR pro. The more they work on it, the less the chances of recovering the data. It probably has damaged firmware, failing heads and/or bad media, none of which will be cheap to deal with.

Contact Sean at PCImage for an honest assessment. He's located in Peterborough.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Thank you for the reply, I will contact PC Image.

Option 2 makes no sense.

Does the drive spin up? If not, then the probem is most likely a faulty PCB. A PCB swap and firmware transfer should cost no more than US$50.

For example ...
http://store.yahoo.com/yhst-14437584971 ... 13499.html
http://store.yahoo.com/yhst-14437584971 ... 11112.html
http://store.yahoo.com/yhst-14437584971 ... 12234.html

Did you overvolt the external drive with the wrong adapter? If so, then a DIY repair may cost you nothing.

See http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks everyone for the help, it's pretty concerning, I thought it best to show the full emails from this guy:

1st email
> The engineer could not see any obvious fault on the board, however, no power is getting to the drive, He has tried to power the drive indirectly and is able to power it and has briefly managed to see the data so we know the drive is ok.
> There are now 2 ways to go about it
> 1) attempt to trace the fault on the board and repair it, there is always the risk of damage to the drive and loss of data.
> 2) Using other tools and extracting the data without the board.
> We can attempt to recover the data using 1st method followed by 2nd method if 1st one not successful.
> Or just recover the data without repairing the board. From experience this can take 3/7 days and total cost including fault diagnoses will be £220.
2nd email
We have left the drive connected since my last update, the engineer suggested is best to leave it powered and wait for your decision just in case if does not respond after disconnection, he is reluctant to make a guess and try to touch the board and try the repair option. It is really your decision
3rd email
Yes it has been left on since 20th, and the data seems to be there. The next course of action is to take an image of the drive if the indexes are corrupt I should be able to sort that out.
We can not select any folder until the image is taken and then get all of the data or the folders you need, at that stage I will be able to let you know what size hard drive you need to copy onto.
He is confident we should get all of the data subject to not too many bad sectors on the drive.
The quote of £220 is for completed recovery of most if not all of data and excludes a hard drive to put the data back onto.

The drive wasn't spinning but when I saw it in the caddy it had occasional power, and this guy says the engineer had it powered. I didn't hear any clicking from it.
@fzabkar - will any of those boards work for my model?, I was told I would need a board from exactly the same batch to use on the board 'Did you overvolt the external drive with the wrong adapter?' - I don't believe I did, though I will look into it

I have asked to return the harddrive

"Yes it has been left on since 20th" this is crazy + all the other crap they tell you - go and get you drive NOW and contact PC Image.

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Digitalsupport Data Recovery
https://digitalsupport.dk

Latest email from computer guy:
'No problem, You can pick it up tomorrow afternoon, I would like to confirm we can not guarantee any recovery by reconnecting again, we have had few similar cases before that we managed to see the data once and after removing and reconnecting the power we could not get the motor going.
If you are sure that you want the data, on this instance I am happy to get the data and you can collect in February.
Please let me know either way.'

I spoke to the IT guy at work who suspects he has just hooked it up to another computer and it works, how else can he access the information?, it feels like being held to ransom, if I get the harddrive back and it's corrupted I'll of lost everything, if he says that he can get me the information for £220 then I would pay it, but can he?... and if he can am I pretty much paying £220 for nothing more than copy+paste?

I agree with the above suggestions -- get your drive back from this guy ASAP. To me, someone who lets the drive on for days is dangerous -- to say the least.

Of course I agree, Sean at pcimage is your safe choice.
Just show up at his place, demand your drive back and send it to pcimage.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

They could stop spindle and keep the drive powered on but not spinning, it is safe enough.

Go to the computer shop and collect your drive. Don't let them know you are coming!!! Just turn up unannounced and collect your drive.
The advice to send it to Pcimage is good. If you are near me I will check it for you for free, just pm me.

That's the thing, I can't get there till the weekend and he's told me he needs 24hr to get it from the engineer, it smells of bullshit to me but I have this worry that if I get pissed off with him and ask for it back there's more chance he'll have it screwed up before I get it back - if it was another item, like a TV I'd get it straight away, it has family photos/videos

dick, Hi, thanks for the offer to help, whereabouts are you?.. I'm in Bath. Cheers

Sorry but I am too far from you on the edge of the capital. 1st thing is to get that drive back. I would give him the 24hr notice you are going to pick it up then just collect it at the weekend?

That makes more sense. The "engineer" (I hate it when people abuse that term) is probably referring to the USB-SATA bridge board, not the drive's PCB, in which case you should be able to hook the drive up to a SATA port on your motherboard and retrieve all the data. That's assuming that the diagnosis is as stated.

Please upload photos of both sides of the bridge PCB. I will try to help you determine the cause of the fault.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

And assuming the bridgeboard doesn't do encryption.

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On a clear disk you can seek forever.

It doesn't.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.