An external HD which was running 'live' was dropped onto floor from about 5 ft, no doubt crashing the heads onto the running drive. It now just makes a horrid grinding noise when connected up and nothing shows up in windows at all.......there was data on it not backed up anywhere else which I need......who can It to in Sheffield and what are the likely recovery of data costs? About 250 GB of the drive was full of data files, and many are unique....HELP!!!!

I can have a look at it without a problem for free if you like we're located in the S11 area and i'll take a look at it whilst you are with me if you like and hopefully we can sort your problem out and get your data back and safe.

Yours,

CPComputing

I dropped my caddy off the desk, but luckily it was absolutely fine! Still, good luck with yours!

I did the same from about 2 foot with my 320 gb, luckily It died over about a week and as soon as I realised I managed to get the data off..

if it's making a grinding sound it's not good news i'm afraid.

it would require a professional, and they would remove the platters and read it raw using specialist equipment, which is costly.

i'm guessing it's music you have lost?

This is where I feel smug and feel glad how I buy my CDs for £2-4 off ebay, rip them, and put the CDs under the bed! You always have a backup then!

Try googling ontrack data recovery, and make sure you're sat down when you check the prices.

Bolts and horses, I know, but like may others who've cried into their keyboard here you'll wish you'd kept a backup of your data - not least given how cheap storage is these days.

I did the same from about 2 foot with my 320 gb, luckily It died over about a week and as soon as I realised I managed to get the data off..

if it's making a grinding sound it's not good news i'm afraid.

it would require a professional, and they would remove the platters and read it raw using specialist equipment, which is costly.

i'm guessing it's music you have lost?

Its music yes but transferred from old cassettes, mainly mp3 versions of classic radio shows. Luckily I still have all the tapes, but they tokk me about 3 months to convert!!!!

Yep its grinding badly and clicking very loudly....pretty sure its deceased beyond help, it did take a real crack on the floor while it was powered up too....

you could try freezing it.. when my partner chucked my 250gig usb drive across the room it had the same probs, very loud constant clicking noise with the nasty grinding when it starts up, i put it in the freezer for a few hours, tried it again and it worked for about 2 hours which was enough to back the data up.. they say between a hour and 24 hours in a zip bag to stop condensation.. might be worth a try?

hi I agree with tommyuk I use a program called getback data ntfs or fat32 which will recover more data than ontrack i have used ontrack for many years but getbackdata in my opinion is well up there right now of course this is only my advice its up to you what you use

I meant the full ontrack service, not a downloadable program.
They'll dismantle the disk and use custom hardware to read anything that's recoverable.
If the heads are grinding then recovery software can only make things worse as the surface gets damaged more.

Yeah this is true. Try going to a shop on Ecclesall Road called 'The Computer Shop' they may do it. Good Luck.

PC World do a data recovery service for about £100, this includes recovering data from dead drives