USB Fanton Drive ?

[Madtown HD Junkie]

I have an extra external hard drive, Fantom 250 Gb USB. It has worked fine up until recently when it is not recognized no matter the pc i plug it into. I could care less about the drive except I have many many pictures and files I need as I used this to store info on. Is there any way to get the info off of it. Maybe a data storage recovery service I have read about? Anyone know the cost for something like this or if their might be other options to get it to work?

the model number is tfdu25072

ty in advance

 

[mike123abc]

Could run $1500-$2k to get the data professionally recovered: TG Daily - DriveSavers dispels common hard drive recovery myths

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

 

[Pepper]

if the electronics in the enclosure has given up the ghost, you could take it apart and try direct connect to an IDE port.

If THAT doesn't work something's wrong with the drive mechanism itself or its onboard controller. If the mechanism and platters are good, it MIGHT be possible to resurrect using identical circuit board from identical drive.

(Rule 1 of important data. Never have only one copy)

 

[NpaulTodd]

get another external hd enclosure or use internal IDE

 

[Anole]

You should be able to tell whether or not the hard drive spins up, by listening to it in a very quiet room.

Check to see how the external box is powered.
Verify it's getting power through external power supply or from host computer.
The drive may work better or may work worse if connected through a USB hub.
If the hub is not powered, get it some power, or remove it from the equation.

Double check all external cabling.
If you find an intermittent cable you can replace, you're home free.

If, as a last resort, you decide to crack open the external drive box, you might try using one of these USB adapters directly on the drive to make it work.

Of course, if the drive is dead as suggested by the posters above, you're pretty much out of luck.
Be very careful you do not accidentally let Windows format the drive , when playing with it.

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

I do not think it is spinning. It is making a light clicking noise at times like it can't catch sorta.... this make sense?

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

And i could open it up and direct connect it to the PC?

 

[Bogy]

And i could open it up and direct connect it to the PC?

Probably, but be very careful. I'll admit I have hooked up drives when transferring files, without bothering to mount them, just hooking up the cables. I only had one bad experience doing this (how many does it take? ). I had the drive hooked up and running, and a screwdriver dropped on the circuit board on the bottom of the drive and shorted it out.

I would second making sure all the cables are tight etc. Thats always the first step. If you open the case, check to make sure the cables have not worked loose. I have an external case I have used to swap a number of old drives in and out of. One day I couldn't get any of the drives to register, or they would be intermittent. Finally figured out I had swapped drives in and out so much that several wires in the ribbon cable for the drive interface had broken.

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

k thank you:

 

[Anole]

Two things about hooking the drive directly to your computer -

1 - If you are not computer- savvy, you:
a) may not be able to get it to work for a number of simple reasons
b) ya might break the drive or worse, your computer !

2 - If the drive in your external case is a 2.5" notebook drive, you may need an adapter to hook it to your computer internal cabling.

So, if you need the adapter, just order up one of the USB adapters listed above.
The price ($9) is about what you'd pay for the connector adapter, but has many more uses.
It comes with a power supply, and is far safer to use (see 1b, above).

 

[Foxbat]

I can votch for DriveSavers as I used them four years ago when my Sister-in-Law's Compaq laptop drive went into the Big Sleep. They can pull files off of pretty much anything and they have quite a rich customer base (lawyers, screenwriters, actors, etc.)

If you use them, make sure you give them a specific directory tree to recover as they charge by the Megabyte of restored data. I wasn't aware of that and it ended up costing me over $1,500 to recover the photos I had taken on our vacation in additon to the personal & financial data on her HDD. DriveSavers sent a complete image backup of the disk (including all of Windows and Office apps and all the stuff that Compaq bundled on her laptop) instead, so it was around 5 GB instead of 400 MB of actual data. If we had said "we need these two directories" it would have been closer to $600 instead. A hard lesson to learn, indeed.

 

[vurbano]

good grief, take it apart and slap it in the PC.

 

[BigTimMN]

the clicking noise doesnt sound good.. sounds like something may be physically broke...

you could always try putting it in the freezer and then try using it, the metal parts contract and sometimes you can get it up and running for a short bit to get the data off of it.

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

yah nothing....have to go for data recovery. it just clicks quietly