tabby

Our 160 gb hard drive has gone which holds all our cds and photo's of our daughter from day 1, and of course I've been meaning to back it up but never got round to it!!!

It still spins but the pc's (tried 3) sees the drive but come up with an IO errors, we have tried a few pieces of software (trail then buy) but they do not seem to work. and the other programmes are for internal not external drives anyone any ideas.

Thanks

Sass73

Can try connecting it to another drive as a slave drive and see if that works in case the drives controller has gone.

jib

To recover the data, take out the drive, take the lid off a
desktop, and plug the drive into the secondary IDE controller.

Ialibu

Have a look at Spinrite http://grc.com/spinrite.htm I have used that over the years.

tabby

Thanks for all your advise, I will try these ideas 2morrow and let you know

Hutch

Well - the good news is that if you're getting I/O errors then it's more likely to be an error on the drive controller rather than the head or the platter, so worst case scenario you can buy an identical drive, swap out the PCB or drive (whichever's easiest) and get all your data off.

tabby

we have found some software that recovers the data, but know it keeps comming up with device error 1117

Does anyone know what this means, I am not tech minded so be gentle

Hutch

Well - as we said - it's a hardware issue, not a platter one. What this means is that all your data is probably perfectly intact, but the PCB that sits on top of the drive and controls the behaviour of the drive head over the platter is faulty. Sounds like the best way to fix this is to swap out the PCB for an indentical one - if it's not something you feel capable of doing, take it to a PC hardware specialist, tell them that you're getting drive I/O errors and that you'd like them to replace the drive controller. If you're worried about getting ripped off, buy an identical drive and tell them to canabalise the new one to get the old one working. From what you've been describing, no software package is going to save the day - they could in fact just make things worse.

Should add - if you're lucky then, as jib mentioned above, you might be able to just pop the lid on the external drive enclosure, remove the hard drive from the case and put it into a desktop PC. It all depends on the design of the drive and whether the controller is integrated into the external drive enclosure or into the drive itself.

utopia

Tabby,

Just sent you another PM

Hutch

Did you ever get this sorted?

tabby

Nope! I can't find anywhere in Aus to buy same HD, so just waiting for BIL to return from business trip and ask him about the slave drive thingy you mention as I don't have the bottle to try it myself!

Hutch

Ah okay. Yea, probably a good idea to leave it if you're not confident of the process.

arkon

I might be able to get it. open the external HD case and inside you should see the actual HD. On it will be a lable with it's make and model number. Let me have that and I will see if I can get one.

tabby

That's great thanks, BIL is going to come round over next weekend and have a go so i will let him open it.

arkon

Ok. I had a Lacie do exactly the same and when I opened it, it was a bog standard Western Digital so I just swapped in the new drive. In my case though the heads were smashed into the platters so was physically damaged and the data was unsalvageable.