Please Help!

[uticklish2]

I purchased a New Seagate Free Agent Go 320 External Hard Drive. I transferred personal information plus tickling material I made over the years. Now the drive won't work. I called Seagate they said the drive is under warrantee, however there not responsible for the recovery of the information. Customer service attempted to repair the drive over the Internet with negative results. Next they offered me their recovery service, the price started at $400.00 to $1,900.00 depending on the work involved. I inquired if there was a cheaper alternative available. Customer service sent me a reconditioned hard drive and referred me to Staples or Best Buys for a cheaper service. I have 25 days to transfer the information and return the old drive or be charged $69.00 for the reconditioned drive. I'm not to happy with using a Staples or Best Buys recovery service due to the nature of the material on the drive. Could anyone advise me on how to proceed.

 

[Myriads]

Sadly the recovery prices they quoted you are in line with what it can cost to recover lost stuff off a dead drive.

Low cost services can work, and they could care less what they are recovering, (Unless it's child porn, then they care and will drop a dim eon you) but a dead drive is often a final prison for what was on it. Be ready to write off the contents.

This is the sort of thing that tends to happen to every computer user once, And leads to being one of those nuts who makes multiple backups every month or so.

Wish I could give better news.

Myriads

 

[uticklish2]

Myriads, thank you for the reply. The drive contained adult tickling pictures and clips I made over the years with friends. I have to return the bad hard drive to Seagate. How do I erase the contents from the hard drive?

 

[Myriads]

With the drive non working there is only one way to erase it; With a hammer. The disk needs to be physically destroyed.

Exposing it to a big magnetic field might trash it pretty well also, but things might still survive.

Once again I'm afraid my news is not great. Sorry.

Myriads

 

[kopfhorer]

Before you break out the hammers and magnets, try this:

http://knoppix.net/

Knoppix Linux is a "live" OS. It doesn't require installation. I myself have used it to recover data from drives which Windows or even regular flavors of Linux couldn't read. Get yourself a new hard drive to copy stuff to (via Knoppix) and you're probably good to go.

If your hard drive's motor's dead or its head stack doesn't work, that's another story. Then you might be talking serious data recovery.

 

[WorkInProgress]

Uticklish2: I was about to say that it's too bad you're not in New Jersey, and then I looked and saw that you are. I'm sending you a PM now, with the place that recovered a corrupted flash drive for me for a couple hundred. If you're anywhere near the area that I'm in (which we'll find out when I PM you), it's worth a try.