Potential Hard Drive Failure

leo1798 · July 6, 2019

So I've been moving around a fair bit this summer and my PC has been coming with me to the different places that I stay. I haven't had any problems moving it across hundreds of miles, but a quick trip across town appears to damaged my bulk storage hard drive. The drive will recognize in both windows and ubuntu, but trying to do anything with it crashes windows and ubuntu is unable to mount it. I'm not really sure what to do as there are some important photos and videos on-board that I did not get to back up between cycles. Are there any additional steps that I can take to fix this issue? Or if necessary, what would be an affordable data recovery service for a 2TB Seagate HDD? I'm likely to take the plunge and just invest in a large SSD in the future, but getting my data back comes first.

kirashi · July 7, 2019

25 minutes ago, leo1798 said:

Are there any additional steps that I can take to fix this issue? Or if necessary, what would be an affordable data recovery service for a 2TB Seagate HDD? I'm likely to take the plunge and just invest in a large SSD in the future, but getting my data back comes first.

Stop using the drive and take it to a data recovery professional to see if they are able to recovery data from it, then replace the drive. You can continue to try mounting it using a Linux distro and Testdisk, but this may damage the drive further.

leo1798 · July 7, 2019

4 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Stop using the drive and take it to a data recovery professional to see if they are able to recovery data from it, then replace the drive. You can continue to try mounting it using a Linux distro and Testdisk, but this may damage the drive further.

Okay thanks, would you be able to recommend me any affordable, but quality data recovery services?

kirashi · July 7, 2019

1 minute ago, leo1798 said:

Okay thanks, would you be able to recommend me any affordable, but quality data recovery services?

DriveSavers, WeRecoverData, or even Louis Rossmann can attempt data recovery. Be warned that recovery can be anywhere from $300 to $3000 or more depending on how damaged the drive is, so you'll have to decide how much your data is worth to you.