Data Recovery From External Hard Drives

An external hard drive is a hard drive connected to a computer with a standardized cable. Early models were cumbersome and slow, not to mention expensive, but modern models are fast, cheap and compact. Like their internal relatives, they are susceptible to the same failures, which can be physical problems (damaged platters that don't spin properly) or more insidious issues that may not be easily repaired.

Types

Most common external hard drives connect to a computer via the USB (universal serial bus) port. This port is included on virtually every computer produced since the late 1990s. Another type is FireWire, which is far faster and uses a different cable. However, not all Windows computers have this port. Older hard drives were connected by SCSI (small computer system interface), which was generally limited to the Mac platform, as well as some proprietary Windows-only models, which required installing a card on the PC.

Identification

The first thing to do is to determine where exactly the problem lies. Does the power light come on? If not, the issue may be the case the drive is housed in, not the drive itself. The jack on the external hard drive case might be defective. Does the drive grind or spin but never mounts? That could be the drive itself, which will mean using a utility to recover the data or sending it out for the data to be extracted.

Order of Steps to Recovering Data

Check the obvious. Make sure all cables are working, and plugged in, including the power supply of the external drive. Swap out the cables with working ones, and check the original cables on other peripherals. Change computers. Try the drive on a different computer. It might be the computers USB or FireWire port that is defective, not the drive. Also, for some unknown reason, many drives don't play nicely with certain computers. Try the built-in diagnostic tools included on your computer's programs of utilities. Use a third-party software program to repair or at least mount the hard drive. Send the hard drive off to one of the data recovery houses.

Prevention/Solution

Prevention is paramount in data backup. A redundant backup scheme, preferably with an off-site copy, is the best way to prevent dealing a dead external hard drive. That way, if there is a problem, you can restore your data and chuck the dead drive in the trash, which saves time and money.

Warning

Though sending the drive away to one of the data recovery services is a good idea, the price is usually high, particularly if you request a quick turnaround time. Unless the data is vital, this option usually is cost prohibitive. If that's the case, cut your losses and use that lesson to adopt a more aggressive backup and data management plan.

Resources

• Symantec
• Drive Savers Data Recovery