External hardrive not reading

Don't mess with it, if you value the stuff get someone who knows there stuff to sort it.

look at a program called Spinrite  (www.grc.com)

its supposed to be a preventative mantenence program for hard drives that you run every so often to stop it dying and bad sectors forming etc, but its also got a frighteningly good reputation for bringing unreadable drives back from the dead and rescuing people's data.

and in terms of use, he's kind of correct. there is an argument that can be made that leaving a hard disk running for long periods is better than stopping and starting it all the time (i.e. leaving it switched on all day and just shutting it down when you know your not gonna be using it for an extended period rather than starting and shutting it down a load of times in one day).

however whats far worse is just the physical moving it about and the way people normally treat them when its an external drive. because its "portable" drive and you can unplug it and throw it in a bag, people generally forget that these are actually fairly delicate things with lots of moving parts inside of them,. ALL hard disks will fail at some point eventually as the moving parts eventually fail (hence why back ups are important) but treating them roughly is going to make that happen far quicker, and lead to damaged sectors and things that make it not boot or loose data.


k


Edited by kevinmcdonough - 08 April 2013 at 6:21pm