[dba-Tech] External Hard Drive Failing

Most HD manufacturers have a low level utility to use in emergencies. I
don't know what brand of mechnism they inside of their units. SimpleTech has
a 3 year warranty and "free and unlimted technical support". Have you tried
contacting them?

John B.
-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Tina Norris
Fields
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 2:56 PM
To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: [dba-Tech] External Hard Drive Failing

Hi,

I've been using a SimpleTech 120Gb USB external hard drive for my backup 
storage.  It's also the one place I've been putting all my downloaded 
files, and all my photos.  It started making little sounds reminiscent 
of a floppy drive having trouble reading a diskette formatted on another 
drive - you know, the bearings are worn just a little differently, so 
the tracks don't line up perfectly when the disk is being accessed in 
one machine, but there is no problem when it's being accessed in the 
other machine.  The external drive started making that kind of sound - 
having a little trouble reading.  I was thinking that I would replace 
that hard drive soon, but it stopped reading before I got around to 
replacing it.  Now any attempt to access it results in the message that 
the drive is not formatted and would I like to format it now.  No, I 
don't want to format it now - I want to copy all the backed up stuff I 
have on it and put it all on the nice new 500Gb external hard drive I 
have. 

What tools are out there that do what the Norton Utilities used to do 
back in DOS days?  There used to be a good Norton Utility that let one 
have access to a disk that DOS couldn't read - what's out there now that 
I might use to recover the good stuff I put away on this drive for 
safekeeping?

I will appreciate any help at all on this.

Tina
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