re: Any hard drive / data recovery experts here?

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Here's my old external drive that doesn't come on at all.

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If the drive doesn't come on at all that's actually a good sign because it is likely a problem with the drive enclosure and not with the drive inside. The drive enclosure just transmits data, so if it breaks your data is probably still good. But if the external drive powered on and rattled on a bit, indicating the drive was powered but not retrieving data, I'd be more concerned.

Unless the drive itself is bad this is the IT equivalent of changing out a car's alternator. No disrespect intended since I can't change a real alternator myself, but your best option might be to pay no more than $150 to Geek Squad for this. What they will likely do is break open the external drive to find the internal drive that is hidden inside. Then they'll hook it up to a desktop-like rig and copy the files off. The only likely complication is that your external drive is old enough that it might use PCA connections instead of SATA, but Geek Squad should be able to deal with this. Your external drive will be ruined but it was broken anyway.

That said - if your hard drive actually is corrupted and you don't have a backup, it will cost you a pretty penny to get the data off a bad drive. Backing up is easier.