External hard-drive suddenly not being recognised by either of my computers! - Page 2

Fair enough. However, the advice I've been given here seems informed and insightful. It has also been confirmed by at least two people. Also, the crossover here on these forums between computer and audio gear is pretty significant as many audiophiles/music enthusiasts choose to use computer based setups and this, coupled with the fact that I have recieved sound, advice on here before regarding computer orientated technical problems, -albeit not hardware based- makes me pretty comfortable, at least preliminarily, posting the inquiries here. Not only that, I trust my sense of when someone knows of what they speak, based on common sense, feeling and natural perception aswell and/or this coupled with the limits of my own knowledge and/or intellgence. Even more so, when I've frequented a forum for over 18 months and have come to know a fair amount of the community, I know tht there are many intelligent, experienced, informed, helpful, quality ppl here. Finally, I know myself, my intelligence, my abilities/capabilities, am wholly confident in them/myself/applying and asserting myself, and know that almost anything is not beyond me with the right knowledge and/or application of myself to the task.

Despite all this, your words are both logical and wise. I will co-oberate the info/advice I've been given here elsewhere/on a pc forum or two/back up through more sources. Generally speaking, using multiple sources to confirm something is what should be done, obviously. With the above I was simply qualifying why I trust the forums here at Head-fi as a source.

Thanks for the info and/or advice dude! Again, very much appreciated. My POA is to first contact the manufacturer of my external hard-drive and see if I can get them to divulge how to pen the casing to my model. I'll give them a few days to answer and/or tell me how to disassemble hard-drive casing. Either way, with this knowledge and/or hard-drive pre-extracted or not, I'll pop down to my local computer store, tell them what I understand about the procedure I need to follow to check if drive itself is damaged as a first diagnostic step, and that I wish them to do that; namely, extract external hard-drive, connect it to a desktop (or laptop if has SATA/eSATA port), via motherboard or expansion card, whatever's applicable, see if that computer recognises secondary hard-drive via this connection via BIOS and/or if it's undamaged. I'll present that to them and see if they concur and/or listen, now with a degree of insight, as to anything else they propose. I'll also ask if I can observe them performing this task so I can get a feel for how it's done.

To do this shouldn't be too expensive, particulary with the insight I have and, in turn, fairly solid idea of how much works involved. It also saves me pulling apart my home desktop to access it's motherboard without any hands on knowledge at all about what I'm doing there. In fact, I may, also, take my desktop tower in to see if I can have the rep I deal with locate my motherboard for me and demonstrate how to access it. That way I will know how to connect an external hard-drive to my own computer independently/at home, and feel confident about doing such hardware manipulation.

Hopefully, I'll find the HD is healthy and working fine (and, therefore, that a connection inside casing has come lose or become damaged or that error has had something to do with USB outlet). Then I can evaluate as to whether I want to maintain using the hard-drive like this or whether I wish to rehouse it and resume using it via USB connection.

If not and it actually has sustained damage, I can look into ways of extracting the data of this hard-drive to put on a replacement at that point.

Ok, didn't think I'd have to post in this thread again at this stage, but, after having contacted the manufacturer of my external HD and partaken i a little flurry of e-mail exchanges, whilst it being confirmed that to open up he HD enclosure to acess HD would void warranty agreement in place, and, recieving some indication of how to open up HD casing (wouldn't/couldn't give me much but, though I havn't tried it yet, enough to open it I think), they provided an anticipatory diagnosis of what might be wrong with my HD from he error message I had been recieving in windows/the prompt to re-format drive; they believed that this related to the partition on the drive and this meant that, obviously, to use HD again by external casing/USB connection, it would need re-formatting but, that, as this may mean HD is corrupt, even if I choose to extract it and see if Windows on PC detects it by sata connection, that there is a significant chance it still may not be read and would need to be reformatted this way. Anyone with more insight and/or knowledge/understanding of HDs/PCs/PC hardware, what do you make of this? Would you agree that this is significant possibility? If so, is there any possibility that if and when I attempt to re-format drive that this process wouldn't be successful in enabling me to reuse drive?

If so, I may choose to swallow it at this stage and cash in on a replacement drive through warranty.

Thanks in advance,


Steve

Presumably you mean, if it were you, going by the content of this thread and/or the responses I've recieved, you don't think it's worth the risk of extracting the HD and seeing if it's detected via sata connection against losining the warranty and, in turn, chance to recieve a replacement HD?

The data is my main priority though, if salvageable. Even if I extract the drive, connect to PC via sata cable and it isn't read, there may be ways of extracting the data still, right? I think giving myself the chance to save my music archive/s (and the many hours invested in compiling and organising those) is probably worth the risk. I dunno I'm just deliberating I think. I am gona need to aquire a backup/second HD anyway to save this happening to me again in the future and, if this drive turns out to be totally caput then I'll have to shell out for two HDs...

I wasn't doubting you, sorry. More just wanting to qualify your opinion as there was clearly more than one choice/option.

Thanks for sharing your same/similar experience, however and, yes, you've definately felt some major ball aches and then some there, even though you're clearly pretty knowledgeable and skilled with computers and/or there hardware/construction etc!

You're right in that I have recieved sound advice already and enough to certainly make an informed decision/choice on what course of action I'm gona follow. I'll just weigh it up all now and make a choice/decision.