Some problems with an external USB 1tb HD

[Rudd]

This is my mother's HD, she cannot access it atm

She went to Portsmouth for a week, then comes back and finds that the HD gives her the message that she needs to format the drive before she can use it.

I just popped down to pc world to see the tech guys, the dude said that for £100 they could try and recover the data but its not likely to suceed, I didn't have 100 quid on my anyway, so I said thanks and left. (I was hoping that since we purchased the HD at Pcworld less than 6months ago it would be covered for a free recovery)

In any1's experience, can the data on the drive be saved? some of it is important to my mum professionally.

this is the drive in question

ST310005EXD101-RK Seagate® External Desktop 1-TB Hard Drive | Seagate

[Ninja2dan]

From my experience, when the PC is not wanting to access the HD it's because it's trying to boot from that drive and doesn't see the O/S.

Is your computer not wanting to access the HD after boot? Have you tried plugging it in on a different computer? Have you checked the drivers, and maybe tried a driver reinstall/update?

Also, which O/S was the HD originally set up to be used with, and has that O/S changed?

[Rudd]

Is your computer not wanting to access the HD after boot? Have you tried plugging it in on a different computer? Have you checked the drivers, and maybe tried a driver reinstall/update?

Also, which O/S was the HD originally set up to be used with, and has that O/S changed?

its just a backup storage device, so its only accessed after boot like a flash drive.

Tried on 3 computers, all same result

tried latest drivers

set up on vista

[Tofurkeymeister]

I had a similar external HDD, which wouldn't connect to a computer. As such, I opened the case and took the hard drive out. I then connected this hard drive to a desktop computer as a second HDD, and it worked!

The point is that it may not be the hard drive that is broken, but rather the USB component. I suggest opening up the enclosure and popping the hard drive into a desktop to see if the data is easily recovered that way.

[Rudd]

got some money together and let the professionals handle it, they promised money back if it didnt work.

[General_J0k3r]

got some money together and let the professionals handle it, they promised money back if it didnt work.

maybe it's just the MBR or the partition table that's screwed?

I take it you have already left it with the tech guys so I'll shut up (OnTrack EZRecovery ... )