Someone who can pull data off of a hard drive.

[Zillon]

I have an external hard drive that stopped working on me a week ago.

I finally pulled it out of the case (it's a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop) today, and I've determined that the HD itself is either seized, or the PCB controlling the HD won't let it spin up.

Anyways, I have photos from the last 5-6 years, projects, papers, some music, and all of my graphics stuff on here. I NEED this data off of the drive, as some of this data makes up part of my portfolio for getting into a design program at PSU, and I can't afford to drop 1-1.5k on data extraction services.

If anyone can give me a hand, please, help me out.

[Spocknasty]

Bad form! Always have a back up drive!

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2005/12/hard-drive-recovery-utilities-when-you.html

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

[Zillon]

Yeah, I know.

This is all stuff I backed up off of my laptop before I reformatted, and never put back on. :o

Anyways, one of the options you gave me won't work. I've got a mechanical problem, rather than a software problem. The HD won't spin up.

And I tried freezing it, to no avail. :(

[Roto]

Where're you located?

[Zillon]

North Wales.

I've got one last trick up my sleeve before I give up, I just need to find an identical HD to pull a circuitboard off of.

[Roto]

That is a good trick. It works if the board is identical... Had to do it a few times...