DATA RECOVERY FROM EXTERNAL HARD DISKS

Example Manufacturers:

• LaCie (eg. Big Disk, Bigger Disk, Bigger Disk Extreme, Quadra etc)
• Iomega
• Freecom
• Maxtor (eg. OneTouch)
• Western Digital (eg. Passport, MyBook)
• Toshiba
• Seagate (eg. FreeAgent, Expansion)
• All types of 'Rugged' external hard drive

Data Clinic are able to recover data from any type of external hard disk.

Problems: External USB and Firewire hard disks basically consist of a case containing a standard IDE or SATA hard disk with a USB or Firewire interface adaptor. Thus, these units are prone to all the usual problems relating to IDE & SATA hard drives plus some others that the external case and interface may bring. Two of the most common additional problems we have noticed with these drives are:

• They get knocked over, dropped, banged etc. In almost all cases, the resulting impact they suffer will cause problems.
• They have a tendancy to overheat. This is due to inadequate ventilation on the external case. Some external hard drives don't contain any ventilation at all, a small number of devices may contain a fan inside the actual case to combat temperature build up.

Symptoms:

• If the hard drive has been dropped: The drive will probably make a ticking / musical noise when powered on. This is usually indicative of damage to the read / write heads &/or the motor. Recovery of data is often possible - click here to read more about recovering data from clicking / ticking hard disk drives
• If Knocked: The drive will make a buzzing noise - usually indicative of a seized spindle. Data is nearly always recoverable - click here to read more about data recovery from hard drives with seized spindles
• If Overheating: The drive will suddenly die and not be recognised by the BIOS, or the computer will appear to start running slowly and noises from the external hard disk may be heard.

Recovery possibilities: Entirely dependent on the nature of the problem. Heat associated problems are often easier to tackle than impact damage problems.

Do Not: Under no circumstances should you continue to use the device as you may cause further damage to the unit. Also, you should not allow the system to run a repair utility on the drive (such as Scandisk / Chkdsk / Norton etc) - this can often render recoverable data unrecoverable.

Read our pages specific to

• Failures on and data recovery from LaCie hard disk storage devices
• Failures on and data recovery from Buffalo hard disk storage devices
• Failures on and data recovery from NAS devices in a RAID configuration
• Recovering delete data on XFS systems / damaged iNode + Superblock information

Read our page specific to failure and data recovery from Iomega Zip and Jaz disks and devices

Related symptom: Click here if your hard disk drive is making a beeping or bleeping sound

What if I have one of these drives but the symptoms are different?: This is quite possible. These drives are still prone to all the other problems hard disks suffer from ie. mechnical failure, logical failure, bad sectors etc.

What should I do?: Call the Data Clinic and talk your problem through with us on 0871 977 2525, or fill out our auto-form and we'll call you back

Links:

• Some advantages and disadvantages of external hard disk drives
• MAIN data recovery page