Anyone up for a challenge?
I have a 3 year old external usb Lacie Bigdisk 500GB hdd. It is one of those that have 2 250GB inside which is what is going to make this tricky!
The drive contains 2 western digital 2500JB PATA drives and it is/has failed but I (like everyone else) really need the data off of it. I recently reformatted and that's the only copy I have of a lot of pictures. When I plug in the USB cable there is a longer than usual delay after the 'duh-ding' noise to when windows starts looking for autoplay. It does eventually open and I can get drive properties (correct amount of total/free capacity) and the first level of folders, but thats about it. I can limp my way through some of the files but mostly the computer just hangs when I drag a folder over. I've had a lot of success with testdisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk in the past but after transferring about 4MB of data it just hangs and the log shows a lot of data unreadable, file does not exist, etc. errors. The amount of pictures I've been able to see on the drive makes me thing neither drive is bad, and there were no errors in the file system when testdisk scanned that, so I'd be willing to bet the PATA-USB converter is the problem but I just don't know.
I'm a geeksquad agent at best buy to give you an idea of my technical prowess. (no really, I know what I'm doing!) I have access to plenty of hardware and software such as other enclosures, sector cloning software, lots of other stuff. I'll refrain from any comments about what my job implies for technical prowess! I'm well aware of my "colleagues" reputation for blunders but I would love to know for any customers with issues like my own what I should do.
Do I copy the drives to my computer sector by sector by plugging them in 1 at a time to the my mobo's IDE channel?
Could I then mount them as images and raid those?
I'm splitting up with my long time, photography major, girlfriend and her stuff is the stuff I would really love to be able to get back to her.
Matt Graham
P.S. Hook up from best buy in san antonio available upon request, thanks again
I have a 3 year old external usb Lacie Bigdisk 500GB hdd. It is one of those that have 2 250GB inside which is what is going to make this tricky!
The drive contains 2 western digital 2500JB PATA drives and it is/has failed but I (like everyone else) really need the data off of it. I recently reformatted and that's the only copy I have of a lot of pictures. When I plug in the USB cable there is a longer than usual delay after the 'duh-ding' noise to when windows starts looking for autoplay. It does eventually open and I can get drive properties (correct amount of total/free capacity) and the first level of folders, but thats about it. I can limp my way through some of the files but mostly the computer just hangs when I drag a folder over. I've had a lot of success with testdisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk in the past but after transferring about 4MB of data it just hangs and the log shows a lot of data unreadable, file does not exist, etc. errors. The amount of pictures I've been able to see on the drive makes me thing neither drive is bad, and there were no errors in the file system when testdisk scanned that, so I'd be willing to bet the PATA-USB converter is the problem but I just don't know.
I'm a geeksquad agent at best buy to give you an idea of my technical prowess. (no really, I know what I'm doing!) I have access to plenty of hardware and software such as other enclosures, sector cloning software, lots of other stuff. I'll refrain from any comments about what my job implies for technical prowess! I'm well aware of my "colleagues" reputation for blunders but I would love to know for any customers with issues like my own what I should do.
Do I copy the drives to my computer sector by sector by plugging them in 1 at a time to the my mobo's IDE channel?
Could I then mount them as images and raid those?
I'm splitting up with my long time, photography major, girlfriend and her stuff is the stuff I would really love to be able to get back to her.
Matt Graham
P.S. Hook up from best buy in san antonio available upon request, thanks again