Other External products

[pinkietronic]

I started my laptop up this morning, and although the Vista OS kind of recognizes there is a drive there, it doesn't bring it up in the window as its proper Maxtor name, it just says drive f: Local Drive, and all the information seems to have disappeared!  This is NOT GOOD!!!

It says if I want to use the drive I will need to format it.  This is not something I want to do!

I've tried a few data recovery downloads and things, but none of them acknowledge the drive as there, or simply say it isn't ready or needs formatting.

I haven't done anything out of the ordinary, but I really need my contents back!

Does anyone have any ideas?  I've reinstalled the Maxtor Manager software, but all that does is say it's functioning properly, and reflects the fact the 600GB memory is free of data!!!

Any help on this really appreciated!

[JanJanssen]

Seagate has a data recovery software too that is pretty decent.

[hwickhorst]

So I take it from this common answer from the Super Contributors that other than paying $700 dollars to have my data recovered the $130 dollar option to download the software yourself and hope and pray that you get your data back is our only option?

Your talking about a software that cost more than the backup drive itself.  Basically what I get out of Seagate is "Put your trust in us, so we can get more money from you when our system fails"

This is rediculous this is the second time that this drive has failed on me for no reason.  I shut the computer down the same way everytime and every 6-8 months I am going to lose all my data?  Maybe I need Seagate to sell me a back-up for my back-up.

There has to be more options.

[tpack]

Perhaps the file allocation table is corrupt. I am struggling with the same issue. Run Check Disk utility to identify the problem. Then download the Demo version of the Seagate File Recovery software and scan the disk. Many files can be recovered easily.

Keep us posted about your progress/problems

[AlanM]

 hwickhorst:

Just to clarify, the software you're referring to, File Recovery for Windows, will tell you --for free-- *IF* it can recover the data.
So you'll know what it CAN do for free.  Then you buy it to actually do the recovery.
Let me encourage you, however this turns out, make sure you always have at least 2 copies of your important data, on 2 different storage media.

[MrButkus]

Have you tried the "drive not found" FAQ

You have to "un discover" the drive, then let Vista find the drive again.  Kind of like removing the part and plugging it back in to reinstall it.

This is not the software, it's the hardware part.

If that doesn't work... write back. 

There are other ways (not easy) but these are Backup drives, not internal hard drives, that are to hold backup copies only.