Need Help. Maxtor External Hard Drive Won'T Work! Anyone in The Sunshine Coast to Help Recover Files??

kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 11:48
Last edited 08/06/2011 - 12:00

Hi guys, my sister's Maxtor external hard drive won't power up. The hubby put it on a charging dock last night but it won't start up. The hard drive has thousands of photos. Apparently it's now out of warranty. Is there a way to recover the files herself or does anyone know someone reasonable in $ and very clue-ee on external hard drives? Any help is greatly appreciated. So far she's been quoted $110 just to look at it.. then anywhere between $500 -$3500 to fix. This seems a bit too expensive.

Edit: Ok, so it turns out the light is on but the disk isn't spinning. What does this mean? Will files be able to be saved?

General Discussion

Comments

  • retiredfeline on 08/06/2011 - 11:58

    Model?

    • kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 12:01

      All I know is Maxtor. I'll have to find out for you.

    • kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 12:08

      Diamond max 21
      Model # STM3160815a

    • retiredfeline on 08/06/2011 - 12:11

      So it's an off the shelf 3.5 inch drive put into a generic enclosure? Try taking the drive out and connecting it up inside a computer. If it doesn't spin up or isn't seen by the OS, that would not be good. :(

      • kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 12:14

        Yeh she said it was 3.5 inch. We'd need an IT person for that. Not very tech savvy I don't think

    • retiredfeline on 08/06/2011 - 12:17
      +1

      I think you need to make friends with a local geek. :)

      • kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 12:21

        I'll ask if she has one of those. Lol

  • retiredfeline on 08/06/2011 - 12:03

    3.5 inch? 2.5 inch? (Desktop and laptop respectively.)

  • bendertiger on 08/06/2011 - 12:07

    Whirlpool is the place to ask this :)

    • kimba88 on 08/06/2011 - 12:11

      I was more or less hoping for someone on the sunshine who knows someone who can recover these files. But I might try whirlpool too. It's just such an effort on a phone. Lol

      • bendertiger on 08/06/2011 - 12:33

        Hopefully it's only the enclosure that's broken…

        Again, as others have said, try removing the drive and seeing if it spins up in a computer.

  • c64 on 08/06/2011 - 12:33

    pull the hdd out of the enclosure and plug it into your computer

    anything valuable should be backed up on multiple devices.

  • tonyjzx on 08/06/2011 - 13:04
    +1

    never ever ever store anything even remotely valubale on a maxtor

    • retiredfeline on 08/06/2011 - 13:31

      The company was bought by Seagate anyway so it would be an old drive. More relevant would be to have two or more copies of everything you value. And better still if one copy is offsite, e.g. with a relative.

  • kimba88 on 09/06/2011 - 09:53

    Good news! All photos could be retrieved! :-) Thanks for all your help!

    • bendertiger on 09/06/2011 - 10:33

      I actually use WD (Western Digital) after heavily researching…still…you have to be pretty unlucky for a hard drive to shed it's data

  • retiredfeline on 09/06/2011 - 10:01

    Well done. And tell your sister to keep backups from now on.

  • kimba88 on 09/06/2011 - 10:06
    +1

    She is now going to keep 3 backups.. and will no longer be using Maxtor or Seagate. She ended up going with the initial quote.. I'm not sure how much it ended up costing in the end. Another external hard drive had to be pulled apart for parts though. Very lucky to have all the photos back

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