[Adyec]

Hi my friends hard drive which is a external USB and she has got it diagnosed and it the person said that the controller in the drive is broken and that she would have to pay £400 to just take her images out but not to fix it.
We both believe that it is to much money also that she is not able to afford it.

Does anyone know how she can get her images out of the drive as she is a photographer so you can understand how important the images are and the amount.

I could do it myself if someone explained how to do it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I appreciate all your help!

[philthomas]

If it's an external USB Drive, the first thing to determine is where the fault is. It could be the circuitry in the External Enclosure or it may be the Hard Drive itself.

Remove the drive from the enclosure and. assuming it's a 3.5" Drive, hook it up to the PC, setting it as the Slave drive (jumper on drive might need changing).
If it shows up in My Computer and is readable .... voila problem solved, just copy the data over.
If it doesn't, but shows up in Disk Management, you could try some Recovery software, like RecoverMyFiles .... you can download a trial and see what it might be able to recover, before spending money.

HTH

[Adyec]

Well it seems that her PC does not recognize her HD. She asked what does "jumper on drive mean"?

[philthomas]

It's a small plastic bridge which is removed and placed in the correct position, as per the markings on the HDD case, like this :




This drive is set to Master

[Adyec]

[SIZE=2]oh right do you open the drive? mine doesnt look like that: she replyed
[/SIZE]

[philthomas]

No you dont open the drive itself, but you need to remove the drive from the USB External Enclosure, then hook it up to your/her PC, by opening the PC and connecting it up to one of the ide ribbon cables. The jumper may need to be changed, depending on what drives are already installed, as you cant have more than one Master or one Slave drive on each channel.

[Adyec]

[SIZE=2]hm i dont get how i set that bit though : friend said
[/SIZE]

[philthomas]

Well .... tell us what she has done so far ..... has she got the drive out of the enclosure ?

If so, what is the make/model no. of the drive ?

[Adyec]

[SIZE=2]says:[/SIZE][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]no i dont understand what the enclosure is and i dont want to damage the insides
[/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=2] says:[/SIZE][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]its a Phillips drive
[/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=2] says:[/SIZE][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]500gig
[/SIZE][/FONT]

[Adyec]

no I dont understand what the enclosure is and I dont want to damage the inside.
its a Phillips drive
500gig

[Adyec]

are you still there?

[philthomas]

Ok .... well USB External Hard Drives consist of an External Enclosure, with a standard Innternal Hard Drive mounted inside.

An External Enclosure looks something like this :



and the Internal Hard Drive, that is inside looks like this :



So if she wants to hook it up to a PC, she must remove it to get to the connections, which are needed by the PC, which look like this :



If the Enclosure doesn't work, she has nothing to lose really ..... can she not get someone to help her dismantel it, if she is not confident.

[Adyec]

If the controller has gone, could this been cause by a virus because recently i think a friends computer might have put a virus onto my PC after using a memory card in her computer then putting back in mine.

[philthomas]

Not really ... a virus may destroy files, but not hardware.

Did your friend take the drive to a reputable outfit, as the diagnosis is a bit vague .... i.e. there is an IDE controller in the circuitry of the Enclosure, which may stop the drive working, when plugged into a USB Port, but if the Internal Drive is removed and hooked up to the PC, as mentioned above, it may work OK.
The only way she is going to find out, is by trying it or getting someone to help her, if she feels uncomfortable with it.

[Adyec]

Have you got a email or something I can contact you incase she has problems later on as I am not sure if I be able to find you on this site. Its my first time. She said that she is just unscrewing it