my brother, who went and came back from iraq, had all of his pictures, videos and memories on a western digital external hard drive. a few days ago the drive began making a sort of two tone buzzing sound. i ripped open the external closure and hooked it up to my pc in hopes that it was some sort of problem with the external hardware. unfortunately the drive still made the sound.\n\nmy brothers memories and everything important to him was on that drive (including the picturs taken for the burial of his friend who died in iraq) so its extremely important i get all the information off. \n\nwould anyone know a way to retrieve the information? id like to send it to a professional to get it removed as this is a situation i wouldnt dare try and fix myself. \n\nsince it seems that the information simply cant be accessed by the guts of the HD im assuming the information is safe.\n\na place or company or some sort would be perfect. \n\nassistance is GREATLY appreciated. from me and my brother.
134180
I searched the NY Times website because I read an article there about a company who did that. I was not able to find that specific article, but a lot of ads came up which I include below. I do not vouch for any of these companies, but it seems like the guaranteed for $99 sounds reasonable....\n\nSeeya.\n\n$99 Data Recovery Service Guaranteed Recovery or no charge 100,000's Gigs Recovered Since 1993\n\nwww.NationwideDataRecovery.com\n\n$379 Hard Drive Recovery\nRapid recovery of your lost data.\nNo service fees unless successful!\nwww.gillware.com 24hr. Data Recovery\nNo Data, No Charge - Guaranteed\n888-254-5823 Contact Us 24 hrs/Day!\nwww.Vioplex.com Affordable Data Recovery\nLow Flat Fee & Fast Turnaround\nGet a quote today (800) 409-7177\nwww.rescuemydata.com Drive Recovery\nFast Drive Recovery 24/7\nFree Estimate (800)233-3648\nwww.ainetworks.com Data Recovery Systems LLC\n800-882-5670 - No Upfront Costs\nWindows, Apple, Unix, Novell, RAID\nwww.DataRecoverySystems.com
65839
sorry man....but only an Ablolute Disk Sector reader program can read your disk now.....and it will need to be run from a DIFFERENT hard drive....\n\nContact a 'data recovery' professional, but you may find the cost to not be worth it.  several hundreds of dollars US.
352085
I just had the same thing happen to me. It was a defective hard drive on my computer causing the issue.....I took it to the Geek Squad for repair....It wasn't an old computer either, 3 months old....Hope this helps!!\n\nGL;)
314097
Is that a brand new external hard drive? If it is you normally have to partition it before your computer can easily detect it. You can use partition magic 9. It might probably have bad sectors too, you can use norton disk doctor to check it. If you think it really has keylogger or worm viruses then scan it using your updated(virus definitions) antivirus software. If the problem still persist, transfer all files to another computer (b sure it has the latest firewall and antivirus update) if you can, then reformat that drive using partition magic. Good Luck!
666307
First off - if the problem is not mechanical but just that your computer can't read the drive i.e. the thing hic-cups and makes noises but doesn't let you get to the data, then there is a freeware program called PC Inspector File recovery. This works well and I have used it a few times.  If you enter http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm in the address bar that will take to their site. \nIf the drive is just dead and will not do a thing then I am afraid it will cost money to get back the data. One such company is called Ontrack & the tel. is 0800 243 996 \nGood luck!!!!!!
21770
probably, but you will have to take your hard drive to a speacialist.\nthere are companys that do this.\nsearch for hard drive recovery on google
342631
It always helps to give as much information about your pc/laptop here and its specifications.  \n\nThe drive sounds fine.  The implication is that it is a graphics or memory problem.
543102
Oh dear. Had the same thing myself, my son and his girlfriend. Doesn't seem to do any harm, just a pain in the bum. You can try what you like to remove it and you will fail. You can delete every file that contains mention of it anywhere on your computer in any way, shape or form you like, and it will still be there. \nBut, give it time,. It goes of its own accord after so long. Just vanishes.
361002
It sounds like the memory stick has gone bad. unfortunately past performance is no indicator of present or future performance and just because it was ok yesterday doesn't mean that it will be ok today.\n\nThere is plenty of software out there which attempts to recover data from courrupt memory sticks and most will allow you to download them free so that you can check if the recovery successfully find all your files. if it does you will have to pay to actually gain the recovery ability.
296217
If you reformatted you are outta luck unless you want to pay someone to dig them out, then they may not be able to retrieve them.....depends where they were on the drive.
647844
Normally the "install it in another PC, image it to another disk" and have look around with "explorer-like" file managers is the first-try method that doesn't risk the evidence chain of the original disk..\n\nCool part is if you "Delete" something it is often still hanging around and forensic software is available to recover and read those files...\n\nEven if you wipe a disk it is possible to revive the residual magnetism and read the files.  The only sure-fire way to erase hard drive data is to open the disk up.  Physically remove the "platen" out and hammer the hell out of it.  Of course you'd need a new disk then.
239515
if its archived it should turn out okay but i would have them make sure its saved in HD or docs somewhere you have personal stuff .
653241
Why not just reformat it, and take it outside and beat it with a sledgehammer? (make sure to wear eye protection and gloves!)\n\nReformating it alone will not entirely remove the information! If someone still wanted to get to your info after that, it's possible, so reformat for good measure and physically destroy it on your own!\n\nEdit: You're not going to get anyone to help you if you're being rude to those who are already trying to - if you know so much already, why are you asking for help? We're trying to tell you how to do it completely without paying someone, which I think is better advice than shelling out cash for something you can do yourself.
180770
try usin a ghost, copy the entire content of your original hard drive to your new one, i do this quite often, i back up my hard drive and just incase something bad happens i can just copy the entire thing from my back up drive
272014
All history files are really not deleted, \nrefer to the below link for more info. it requires some digging around to get to them, but it's possible.\n\nAlso, if he deleted the cache, but not the cookies ... you can always tell a lot by what cookies are stored on the machine... with those, you can actually get a timeline of when a website was access by looking at the created/modified timestamp on it.\n\nNote to all the ones addressing trust issues: they or may not have trust issues.... as far as I'm concerned, it's not my responsibility to be her counselor at this point. she's asking a technical question... you should probably keep your answer technical... unless asked otherwise.
491504
Ignore the noobs who say nothing can be done.\n\nYou can try this software\nhttp://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm\n\nOr, if you are prepared to pay real money, there are a range of professional 'data recovery' firms who can get data off almost any drive. Not cheap but possible.\n\n///
456918
Just this past winter. Mine was having major problems due to a virus (tried everything to clean it off but it was still acting funny) so I moved all my important docs and pics to my husbands computer. Then I redid my computer and  moved them back. Was still acting funny so I decided to reformat both my c and d drive. Moved everything over but I forgot to move my pictures the second time. Lost all the pictures of my kids when they were young, pictures from trips we took, lots of pictures. \n\nMy husband died this summer and I only have what was printed out. I kept meaning to back them up on DVD.  Backup anything important....do it at least every few months.