External Hard Drive Failed

[msgriff]

UPDATE:
Thank you all for your help and suggestions. I talked with the people from Iomega...they suck!...ok, got that off my chest...anyway all they could offer me was a replacement EHD that I had to pay 25.00 to send...back and $700. to 1800. to restore my pictures!
I called the place where I purchased the EHD and was able to return it.
I went to Best Buy and brought a Western Ditigal Portable. I have a good friend that is a computer programer. He was able to recover my pictures and digi files for me.
I am now going through the digi files to see what I was able to get back and what I lost..so far, so good..
Again, thanks for all your help,
Cynthia
I am sooooooooo upset! I just purchased an Iomega External Hard Drive on 2/27, loaded all of my pictures and digi kits....guess what?? The hard drive failed..so goes ALL of my pictures and kits! Can someone PLEASE tell me that is can be "fixed" and how to fix it! I am so upset now!

[cats4jan]

My EHD didn't exactly fail, but at times the computer failed to "recognize it" even when it was properly connected.

Try disconnecting the power cord - leaving it off for a while to totally cool down - and then reconnecting it. These things tend to overheat and they just need a cool down and a hard reboot.

I've even heard of people putting their EHD's in the freezer, but I haven't had to resort to that. I've just needed to disconnect it and let it reboot.

BTW - both my EHD's have done this - two different brands - both about the same age - less than a year old each. One is more prone to giving me grief than the other, but both are glitchy.

Make sure your photos and scrapbook kits are on two sources. A true "backup" is having the files also stored in another place.

[Roln]

For crying out loud! I can imagine how sick you are...I know this to be true, because I had a hard drive go bad that had a ton of stuff. At least 90% of my photos were not lost....luckily, I transferred most everything to a CD and then made a back-up of that.
I got the hard drive replaced with a new one, as it was still under warranty, which was the only good thing that happened.
I confess....I'm one of those guys that puts off backing up my data on a regular basis.
I wish I could be of help...sorry.

[msgriff]

Thanks, I am at a lost right now. I thought I was doing the "safe" thing by having an external hard drive...sigh...
I will contact Iomega tomorrow, hopefully something can be done...

[PicturePerfect]

There's an old saying: the question is not if a hard drive will fail, the question is when it will fail.

[genevh]

Have you tried disconnecting/reconnecting it and/or powering it down?

When you put your files on the EHD, did you move them or just copy them? If you just did a copy and didn't erase them from your internal, you should still have them there.

There is a possibility that the drive itself may be OK and it could just be a problem with the housing and interface to your PC. I had one go bad on me and all I did was move the HD to another enclosure. It works fine now.

If the HD itself is bad, there are recovery options available depending on how precious this data is to you and how much you may be willing to spend.

[dj_paige]

To everyone reading this far:

Please make regular and proper backups of your photos so a hard disk failure doesn't result in the loss of your photos.

Don't wait another day to make backups of your precious photos.

[genevh]

I second that. Unless you have your stuff in 2 (or more) places, it IS NOT backed up!

[dj_paige]

I second that. Unless you have your stuff in 2 (or more) places, it IS NOT backed up!

To clarify even further, "two or more places" should be phrased as "on two different physical disks".

If you make a copy of your photos on the same physical hard disk, these are not backups. In this case, when the hard drive fails, you have zero copies of your photos. And don't be fooled, some computers now come with C: and D: drives that are different partitions of the same physical drive. In that case, photos on C: and copies of photos on D: are not backups.

[Shooter7]

Carbonite - $50 a year. (and no, I do not work for them) Just like the security. Unlimited backup and off site.

[CoffeePixels]

msgriff,

Depending on what is wrong you might consider a program called spinrite, http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

It won't help you in the case of a mechanical failure, but if it is a firmware issue it could save your drive. At $90 it isn't cheap, but if things don't work out you have a copy for life to use with future drives.

I've used it successfully and recommend it with the above stated conditions.

In any case, I hope you are able to recover the drive.

Ted