Personal Media Drive problem

[Ryan Hrudey]

I have backed up all of my very precious data, photos, work onto a HP Personal Media Drive external hard drive. The drive stopped working a few weeks ago and I have been unable to repair it with the guidance of HP tech guys. Do you know of any way that i can access the drive, other than the obvious/ normal ways. When I conect the drive it appears for a second on the 'my computer' screen and then dissapears. It does appear in the 'device manager' app. and that screen tells me that it is funtioning normally. It is not! I am unable to access the drive and when it is conected to my computer (or any computer) none of the applications that use the drive will work. The entire computer (asside from the internet apps.) The instant I disconect the drive, everything begins working normally again. Any actions that I attempted to perform while the drive was connected imediatly happen as soon as the drive is disconected. Due to these limitations, i am unable to run any scans or diagnostics on the drive to fix the problem. The drive sounds like it is functioning normally; as there are no unusuall noises and the status lights are on. Please give any suggestions you have as I am becoming desperate. The drive holds some very important photos and data.

Thank you for you time and effort.

[Trygve Henriksen]

So... you had the backup, but not the original data?
(A backup is supposed to be a COPY of the data, not a replacement)

Anyway...

Does the drive sound normal?
(Spins up normally, no excessive clicking sounds?)

If so, it may be the electronics in the box that have died.
You may be able to remove the HDD from the enclosure and either insert it into another, or connect it to the correct interface inside your own PC.
That should get you access to your files.

If not...
Then I would suggest contacting a Data recovery service, like IBAS.

If your drive IS wonky and you still want to try, then 'GetDataBack NTFS' may be able to help you. But please note that this will not edit the disk itself, but store any recovered files on another disk. It will also stress the disk, and may in fact destroy it completely if you have a red/write head that has been damaged.
(The People at IBAS takes the platters out of the casing and put them in a special jig to avoid that problem)

Some people may suggest that you place the HDD upside down, or even to leave it(wrapped in plastic) overnight in a freezer.
These are very dangerous tips and are more likely to destroy the disk than help you recover anything.

Oh, and you put this topic in the wrong forum... (This is for Tape drives and libraries.)