K i'm doing my very best to follow this conversation...I think what i have learned so far is that before i do ANYTHING with my crashed drive is learn more about my options and what it involves....
One thing i was told is like when i plugged it in, the drive while it was in the external housing, a windows message came up saying drive needs to be formated ....I was told about this to do a quick format, that that would not damage data on the drive....Thoughts on this Bart or Asher?
Erik,
A "quick format"?
How would you think about someone doing his own eye surgery?
Erik, you cannot allow yourself to try out things if you want to have the best chance of a good outcome. Do not do any "quick format"! there must be nothing written to the drive platter. In good hands, the person will make a "disk image" without writing one iota, one "electron" on to the disk platter. That's what the program I suggested to you and i have obtained will do. That's what folk who charge $1000 - $2500 for recovery really do a lot of the time. Of course, the dirve can be taken apart and the platters can be remounted in an identical but working mechanism and then the high charge you get is justified. However, I believe that is not the case.
Each time i had a disk in to a service center where they said it was $99 to check the drive and do a software recovery if it was possible, they told me that it had to go for the $1500 clean room treatment!
Each time I recovered the data, albeit slowly and painfully with 95% of the files intact and with unreal names.
So I believe that the Prosoft $99 software solution is likely one of the safest routes you can go. Likely, you shouldn't do it yourself, since you do not have sufficient experience to be 100% sure that you are not going to screw up. The same with a person doing their own eye surgery!
Neither eyes not personal photographs can be re-created if lost!
Asher