"Hacking" into damaged external hard drive. PLEASE help...

[AnrBjotk]

So I dropped my WD hard drive on the floor, and it wont start up.
So I purchased a new WD hard drive, so I could replace the power adapter and place the old hard drive inside.

However, my mac won't properly accept this new beast. It says that it can't read the drive, BUT it does show up on disc utility (but the Verify buttons are unclickable)

Is there ANYTHING I can do to access the drive and gather files?

Please help...

 

[SYQUEST]

That would depend on the level of damage to the hard drive. You might want to try a real disk utility or utilities, since it seems these days no one writes any comprehensive software anymore for hard drives that existed in the OS7 to 9 days! Otherwise, you probably need the services of a company that specializes in disk data recovery, if the info is that important and you don't have a backup...

Remember, you always move forward by backing up!!!

....JIM....

 

[imeldesign]

I've had fairly decent success getting to files on damaged hard drives using Data Rescue II. Depending on how damaged the drive is it can take DAYS to rescue files.
You will need a computer than can run 24/7 and enough HD space for that rescued data.
I managed to get data off a very badly damaged drive but it took 10 days to do it. Luckily, I used an older imac that I wasn't using for anything else.

 

[Welshbird]

I've had similar experiences. To bo honest, the thing that helped was refrigerating the drive over night first. I managed to resuce just under half a terabyte.

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[AnrBjotk]

Here's the lowdown:

DiskWarrior can't find the disk.
Both Data Rescue 3 and VirtualLab FIND the disk, but freezes up while trying to scan it...

 

[Welshbird]

I used data rescue on a cold disk and although it took for ever, I did get almost everything back.

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[AnrBjotk]

But whenever I try Data Rescue, it just stands still at 0% for a day or two...

 

[SYQUEST]

That does not mean the program froze. When the recovery is very intense, things move very very slowly, but after three days if nothing is indicated, then you may have to try something else. This is a very difficult task trying to read an area of the disk that has been scratched or whatever damage has occurred. Screwed up checksums make it nearly impossible to recover, sort of like guessing an encryption key.

....JIM....