Ah sucky, sorry to hear that dude. As long as you're able to recover the files, that's the important thing!

--
Ted Kim
illustrator • concept artist
official site: [link]

Prints available: [link]

Here's hoping. I've done everything I can do, including putting the drive in a brand new enclosure, but no luck. I'm hoping at this point that the problem is a bad data connector on the drive itself, as it powers up and spins -- just doesn't transmit data. And since it was purchased it hasn't been dropped, banged, etc. It's sat pretty, untouched. But powered it down last night for a computer reboot, and it never came back, and isn't recognized by any of my computers even through the use of different cables. Sucks mightily.

--
Artist on DOCTOR WHO from IDW Publishing.
Website and Blog: oneGemini Studios

That sucks. I had the same thing last year...definitely not fun Blair. I wish ya all the best of luck and yes, that maxim is true....every time you get close to a win, a fail will occur.

--
Can't spell Nick without "I-N-K"
Dream BIG- Dare To Fail.
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aww crappy! Keep me posted on the situation dude.

--
Ted Kim
illustrator • concept artist
official site: [link]

Prints available: [link]

Oh man-- I think I know exactly how that would feel. It's a big fear of mine.

I am currently using a Western Digital MyBook Studio II drive as my external. It's a two-drive RAID (mine is 1 TB each) and I use it mirrored, for built in failover.

In an ideal world, I would have two of those-- One set up that way for storage, the second "striped" to be used as a 2 TB TimeMachine.

--
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Hm. I may ask you a few questions about that soon (your current set up). Your ideal world is indeed ideal, but I think your current world is a good start.

I have this now empty, extra enclosure. I'll probably get another 1TB in the next couple of weeks to fill it, and then maybe another 500GB to 1TB in another enclosure (I want to "build" it myself so I know what's in the box). However, what you currently have sounds a bit simpler for backups, rather than me manually setting it up (I still won't have a new computer until the end of the year).

I've been referred around to data recovery services, and the one that keeps coming up is DataSavers in CA. I talked to them today, and I'm probably looking at $1000 easy, maybe more. So I'll try to survive in the short term (I'll have to re-gather reference for you-know-what next month), but hopefully save my pennies for a Christmas present to myself of my own damn data.

--
Artist on DOCTOR WHO from IDW Publishing.
Website and Blog: oneGemini Studios

A few notes:

1.) If you want to do a RAID, I highly recommend a "drive" with two drive units and it's own RAID controller built in. Doing a software RAID requires two IDENTICAL drives, and is very different in terms of performance.

2.) If you buy a drive, you know what is in the box. They all say somewhere exactly which mechanism is in the enclosure. Building a drive yourself is cheaper, but sometimes you get what you pay for if you go that route.

Given what you've got, I'd do this...

Buy a 1 or 2 TB drive that fits your enclosure. Something at least 7200 RPM, and known for reliability. That can be your main replacement drive for now, and once you buy a RAID drive later, that will be big enough to be useful for Time Machine. (The more capacity, the more versions it keeps.)

What drive recovery tools have you tried so far? A lot of problems that can be solved by the cheap (i.e. under $5000) recovery places can also be solved by software, and/or popping the same drive mechanism in a new enclosure. Both of those options are a lot cheaper.

--
BEST WORK - [link]
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Already went the enclosure route.

[link]

[link]

This is what has happened to me. Forums and threads all across the net say Seagate is still ducking questions about this one, and giving people the runaround looking for service.

DataSavers out in CA, who I spoke with today, were somewhat familiar with it. It's not coming back with software recovery. It's clean-room time for this drive.

--
Artist on DOCTOR WHO from IDW Publishing.
Website and Blog: oneGemini Studios

Also, a look at the iOmega Prestige box in hand does not indicate what is within the enclosure anywhere, nor is it in the very limited documentation. I could've probably dug it up online, but that wasn't even a concern when I bought it.

--
Artist on DOCTOR WHO from IDW Publishing.
Website and Blog: oneGemini Studios