I have a Seagate ST1.2 8 GB drive in an I/O Magic enclosure with a flexible USB connector that stopped responding recently. I suspect the USB connection has failed, not the drive. I would like to recover the contents of the drive. Can I purchase another enclosure for this drive to test and see it still works?

Have you tried the hard drive outside of the enclosure? Maybe it just isn't compatible with it. Else something with the connector could be broken

Purchase a new "empty" enclosure, and "transplant" the disk-drive from inside your enclosure into the new enclosure. Cost will be $30 to $40, but all your files on your disk-drive will be accessible.

Did you break the connector on the "enclosure" part of an external disk-drive,
or did you break one of the connectors on the "bare" disk-drive (not inside an enclosure) ?

If the former, then you can purchase a new "empty" enclosure, and "transplant" your disk-drive (with your files) from the "old" enclosure to the "new" enclosure.

If the latter, then you need to find an _identical_ disk-drive, disassemble it, to separate the "spinning" part of the disk-drive from the electronic circuit-board (with its connectors), and disassemble your disk-drive, and connect your "spinning" part to the "good" circuit-board.
Or, search online for a professional "file-recovery" service, who will do the same, for a fee.

An external storage-device has four major components:

* the USB cable

* the power-adapter

* the disk-drive inside the enclosure

* the USB-to-disk-drive adapter inside the enclosure.

One of these components has failed.

Try a different USB cable.

Try connecting to a different USB port on your computer.

Try connecting to a USB port on a different computer.

Take a "multi-meter" and measure both the voltage and amperage output from the AC adapter, and compare with the specifications on the label on the adapter.

Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and then connect it as a "slave" disk-drive in a desktop computer, to see if it works at all.

Purchase a new, compatible, disk-drive, and install it in the enclosure, to "revive" your external storage device.

Get the part-number and serial-number from the label on your disk-drive, and access the manufacturer's web-site, and use "check warranty status", to see if they will replace the device, at minimal cost to you.

There exist commercial "data recovery" services that can try to repair your device, just long-enough to rescue and copy your files. For example, see: https://services.seagate.com/index.aspx?lng=en-US for a "no data - no charge" guarantee.

Sure we can help, that's why we're here!

First, there are two main possibilities, either the enclosure is damaged or the drive is damaged. Either way it's doubtful you could claim warranty at this point and I assume you'd rather get your files back than a free replacement drive.

Take the drive down to your local PC store and ask the techs to extract the hard drive from the enclosure, then to test the drive. If the drive is healthy they can simply transfer it into a new enclosure. Once there you back to business as usual.

If they determine the hard drive is also damaged, get back to me with you location(Country, State, City) and I will recommend one or more Data Recovery facilities in your region.

Hope this helps FixYa,


Chris

They make a internal hard drive to a external case.

Problem can be tricky.. though i offer my two cents.

1. some BIOS have upper limit of hard disk capacity. check that out. try connecting IDE device to IDE connector in same comp and see if it is being detected properly.

2. seagate guys are true .. IDE to usb conversion can be tricky ... a lot depends on card convertor.

my advice would be if you have precious data on it ... first take a backup of it, if possible connecting the disk to nomal ide connector.

Is the blue light blinking? I had the same thing occur to my I/O Magic 250 GB USB drive a couple of days ago. I did an online chat with I/O Magic tech support and the guy said you can RMA (return) it if it's in warrantee, but otherwise too bad. Mine is out of warrantee. Since the enclosure contains an ordinary hard drive inside, just carefully peel off the little metal plate at the back of the unit, undo the two screws and slide out the drive. The are two plugs and four screws to free the drive. To get your data back once you've got the drive out, you've got three choices: buy a new enclosure ($20+), buy a toaster ($50) (it's like an enclusre, but you just pop a drive into the top, like bread into a toaster), or open up your computer and connect the drive directly as any other. Oh and don't buy another I/O Magic product again.

An external USB drive consists of tow parts:

a hard drive (usually a standard IDE or SATA drive), and

an enclosure

The enclosure is the box containing the drive. It also includes an interface to convert the data from the IDE or SATA interface on the drive to a USB (2) signal. Some enclosures include and internal power supply. The Freeagent has the power supply externally.

Hope that's what you mean.

Hi whata

Plug the external hard disk into another computer's USB 2.0 port. If the problem follows the device, then there is a failure either of the external hard disk enclosure or of the hard disk (inside the enclosure).

If yours is one that you built yourself, you can remove the hard drive from inside the enclosure and plug it directly into a desktop computer (or another external hard disk enclosure) to see if the problem follows. (If you need help w/ this, just let us know.)

If yours is a pre-built external hard disk (you bought it w/ the hard drive already built-in) then you'll (if you're inclined to do so) need to open the enclosure to get at the hard disk inside. This can be difficult. You may, depending upon the enclosure, need to damage the enclosure to get it opened up.


Please, let us know if this response was helpful for you or, of course, if you have any further questions.

Thank you
BJ