I have a 250GB which seems to have failed entirely now. It's still detectable by Windows - is there any way I can recover the files? They're really important to me. I don't care what it cost to recover them, but of course cheaper the better

Contacy seagate. They should be able to help you.

ALWAYS backup.

If the drive has physically failed it will be very difficult if not impossible to recover the files. If it is a software fail, you might be able to use some file recovery programs.

You might be able to contract someone to salvage the data, but its not going to be cheap.... There's only a few instances where data is forever lost... The professionals can even retrieve data from broken RAID arrays!!

Wasn't that $1,500 for corp drive recovery just for a laptop 2.5HDD.

If the data was really that important, proper back up procedures should have been done. Seagate has data recovery capabilities. Contact them. Your drive may be under warranty too

Thanks guys, but backing up 1 TB of stuff is a lot of work, so I never came around to doing it, LOL.

If you have that much important data, you would need 1T of back up space. You should have planned for that... I can't imagine what you could have that could be that big. ...Movies? Games?

u said that windows can still detect the HDD is that right?ok, do u know how to use linux,because i have had those problems with western digital before and what i do is i use linux because linux see data even when the boot sector of your hdd is corrupt.so get what is known as a live-cd of knoppix,then boot from it.u will be able to see all your data,if all u said is true.the difficult will copying it.however u'll get it all.R robin_bga@yahoo.com

Okay I've found a way to recover the files, but it's a long process.

I think what may have caused the HD to die is insufficient power. Guess my Enermax 485W just didn't do.

What's a better PSU to use?
I'm planning on buying a 320GB Seagate to take the recovered files out, then send it into Seagate for the warranty.
When it gets back, I'd have 5 harddrives in place.

These are my computer specs:

2.60ghz Intel
ASUS P4P800 E-Deluxe
1x 320GB Seagate
1x 250GB Seagate (Failed)
1x 300GB Seagate (RAID)
1x 200GB Seagate (RAID)
eVGA Geforce 6800GT 256MB Video Card
5 - 6 case fans

Well thanks for the help people!

You are running a RAID array. Redundant Array of Independant Disks... Isn't there a system backup on the RAID array? Afterall this is what a RAID array is for

Oh yeah I know, but I rather just use it for storage.