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After some trouble with graphics drivers that caused my computer to rapidly power cycle the USB ports, my external hard drive (a Seagate One Touch 2TB) no longer appears when I plug it in to my computer. It does, however, make an intermittent beeping sound (that I initially thought was from my crashed computer), which cursory googling says has to do with the board not receiving enough power to function. The board's power light turns on like normal, but it doesn't sound like it spins up.

Using lsusb I was able to find that my computer can read the device's USB information - I can get a make and model, serial number, and some stats around its maximum current that all seem pretty much nominal - so the ROM chip is probably not fried, at least.

Outside of taking it to a data recovery shop (which, according to online estimates, I can't really afford right now), is there any possibility of recovering the data off this drive from home?

Doc
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1 Answers1

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This post assumes you have ruled out professional data recovery. (If not, stop what you are doing with the drive and take it to the recovery company without doing anything further - the more you do the lower your chances of professional recovery)

There are a few things you can attempt - none guaranteed.

  1. You may want to put your cellphone on/near the drive and take a short audio clip of it for us so we can try identify the sound better.

  2. You can try connecting the device to another computer. If your computers USB port is damaged it may not be able to provide the required power to support the drive. Another computer may not have that issue.

  3. If 2 above works, you may be able to work around the issue by using a powered USB hub.

  4. Most USB hard drives (including this one) include a standard 2.5" SATA drive. Not a particularly good video but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4L2kZMAOXE shows you how you can extract the drive. Try to ground yourself and avoid touching the drive board, and try use plastic pry tools rather then metal ones if you can - a Guitar Pick is a very cheap tool for this purpose, and credit/debit type cards are also useful if you don't want to spring for proper tools) You can then take the SATA drive and plug it directly into a desktop computer (or some laptop computers) and try and recover the data that way. If the USB -> SATA Bridge on the drive is damaged (which is a definate possibility), you could even take the drive and put it in an aftermarket USB enclosure.

davidgo
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