Seagate 3tb hhd now invalid

Dblkk

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Oct 30, 2013
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I have 3x3tb Seagate hhd's. Not in raid. Have had since January of this year.

1 of them now doesn't show up in my computer. If I go to disk management it shows up, but shows invalid. The disk is dynamic. This disk is also 80% full with files/photos/videos I need.

Ive tried several free programs, theres a dynamic disk converter program which says it can convert to basic and not loose files this way. But it doesn't support anything above 2tb. There have also been about 5 'free' or 'demo' programs for file recovery ive used. They find all my files, but I need to buy the program. But they are $100 or more and typically that $100 is just 1 year. I only need it once. And I really don't want to spend $100.

Is there any other way to get my files off and fix this drive? Or just get my files off so I can RMA or something>
 

TyrOd

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Aug 16, 2013
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Nope. Not only will you have to pay for the software, but the software may or may not recover your data. It's just as ,likely to be a problem with the drive physically and you'll end up paying hundreds of dollars for professional data recovery.

If your data isn't even worth the cost of a backup drive, then you're not getting it back. RMA it.
 

Dblkk

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Oct 30, 2013
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What is the best, budget also minded, program to recover files? I like Acronis, but they offer 30 some programs, I don't know which one actually is made for what I need.

Would anyone know which program I actually need?

And yes most likely fault in drive, and I will be RMA'ing it when I get my media off. I do have several backups, which run on a daily/weekly basis depending which drive stores which types of files. Problem is, the problem drive is my rarely used backup of original files. It might get powered up once a week to do a backup transfer. Don't even know how long it hasn't been working, just noticed it about a week ago when I needed to start working on a new project.
 

TyrOd

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Aug 16, 2013
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If it's a physical fault with the drive then no consumer software will help you. In fact, software only recovery tools will put more stress on the heads and make it worse.

The best software-only tool out there is DDRescue but ONLY if you know how to use it properly to minimize stress on the drive.

Anything beyond that requires hardware imaging tools as well.