I Think I may have lost all my data on my External HDD, any help will be appreciated....

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weallhavedreams

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Mar 8, 2015
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So I have a 4TB Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive (Model: SRD00F2) and it got dropped off the desk whilst I was away from the house!!!! (and no-one is owning up to it)

I tried plugging it back in using the included power supply and USB cable and nothing....doesn't spin, led doesn't even turn on (enclosure led) so i guess the enclosure is dead which is fine.

So I removed the drive from the original enclosure and put it in a USB 2 enclosure - Drive spins but windows says I have to format it to use it.............

Next I used the same enclosure (USB 2) on my iMac and even with Paragon NTFS+ i couldn't open the drive, and paragon displayed it as a 500GB drive?

Its now currently connected to my Windows 8.1 64bit desktop via SATA and in disk management it is displayed as:
467.75GB RAW Healthy (Primary Partition)
1582.25 GB Unallocated
1678.02 GB Unallocated

I am currently running Puran File Recovery (http://www.puransoftware.com/File-Recovery.html) and its on i guess 18% (no numbers on progress bar) after about an hour running but im not hopeful as so far it has found a grand total of.....ZERO files, I tried Recuva (http://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds) but it wouldn't recognise the disk (unregonised file system)

Basically I am asking if someone out there who is much wiser than me, has any suggestions as to whether I will be able to recover ANY data from the drive, or if I am just 'flogging a dead horse' and all is lost.

Thank you in advance to any suggestions
(please don't remind me how stupid I have been with not having multiple backups (I have already kicked myself about it, and 'professional' data recover isn't an option as I simply cannot afford it)
 
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popatim

popatim

Titan
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You will need the exact same Seagate Housing to recover the files. In many models the usb/sata interface board used partition tricks to maintain compatibility with older systems. What you are seeing is those 3 partitions and afaik there is no way to rejoin them without that same interface board.

In the future please keep in mind that important files should never be stored on just one device. The more copies you have of them, stored on different devices, the safer they are.
 
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weallhavedreams

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Mar 8, 2015
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Lets make sure I am understanding this correctly....
The board (usb, power, led etc) inside the enclosure is almost acting like an embeded computer and without that working nothing will be able to access the files within the partitions....?

Also would I need to purchase the exact same external HDD (4TB) or would I just need to purchase an External HDD with the same Model number: SRD00F2 (As I have found a 2TB version on ebay with the same model number at a very good price)

Could I purchase the 2TB version, take out the drive install that on my desktop and use the enclosure from that to retrieve the data from the 4TB drive?

And yes i am aware of multiple backups (how much safer it is etc) and as stated have already beat myself up over that but thanks for the advise.
 
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weallhavedreams

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Mar 8, 2015
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions, sorry its been a while since I posted, I decided to cut my losses and just format the drive and leave it inside my desktop.

Puran found 668 files but they were 'poor' quality and on viewing them the quality was fine but for example a video that was originally 5minutes after being 'recovered' was only 1:30, not a HUGE loss since it was only recorded game footage that has mostly already been used
 
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