External harddrive borken - what are my options?
 

I have a Seagate Freeagent 750GB external HDD (USB). Last night, the magic smoke escaped, and now it smells like a GTB gone bang, and it doesnt work. I dont have the data backed up. There's quite a bit of stuff on it that I wouldn't like to lose, such as photos, work, music, some vids etc.

What are my options for getting the daa back, or is it gone?
I dont even know what is inside these things, is it just an enclosure and HDD? Could it be the enclosure that went bang?

Does anyone know any reputable companies for salvaging data?

Thanks for any help, form Chris.

PM'd

Perhaps the controller board went 'poof' - you should be able to rip the thing apart and plug the hard drive itself into your computer to test it.

Yeah ive never had an actual hard drive go bang, i would say it will still be recoverable in a pc if you get it out the enclosure.

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll get the hammer and chisel out later today.

You can get this sort of thing:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136214

You should then be able to plug the drive into usb (works for me on windows), or an new external enclosure would not be much more expensive.

Chris ive got a lead at work which plugs into the back of ya hard drive and a usb of another computer. Then you just transfer the data across.... Let me know if ya want it....

There are also companies that restores data from dead disks. If it's only electronic then they'll take out all magnetic disks and run them in another case (from what I've heard). Try too google some (I really don't know who do this in UK).

Fear not my friend, a common trick at computer shops is to put the hard drive in a none static bag and put it in the freezer for ten, fifteen minutes. It cools the parts down enough to work. I don't know why it just works.

The most likely cause of smoke would be the electronics on the HDD it’s self. If this is the case then a new enclosure won't work neither will putting it directly into a PC via the IDE or SATA cable.

The trick here would be to buy an identical model HDD (the drive inside the enclosure) and then swap the electronics board over. These normally just unscrew.