I got a SimpleTech 500GB Network Storage drive a few months ago (June 2007). Its basically a hard drive enclosure with a drive inside. It was attached to my NETGEAR router & everything was working fine until the other day. It just seemed to DIE. After calling the manufacturer to help diagnose the problem with their tech support, it appears the unit has crashed.
After some investigating online, these brands of network drives don't seem to have the greatest reviews. I came to learn too that the drive brand that Simpletech uses inside these enclouse units is a Samsung drive. This brand is suppose to be one the worst on the markets as well which would explain the source of problems to begin with. I believe it too cause I have never bought a Samsung, but have NUMEROUS other brands installed that are humming along fine in other PCs after YEARS of service (Western Digital, Seagate, & Hitachi).
Anyway, I had about 80GB of data on it. Fortunately stuff that wasn't terribly too important, but I would like to get it back iff possible. Its still under warranty and I plan on getting a replacement, but that doesn't help my situation with all the data that is on there? I was thinking maybe I could open the case, extract the drive separately and attach it to a regular PC to possibly restore the data (using a data recovery program I have used in the past). Do you think this is possible or if the drive is dead, its just dead? Or should I not mess with opening he case since I'm returning it under a covered warranty period? It looks like 4 simple screws to open the external casing. Just wondering.
OK, I just went ahead and opened the case. It was simple and it turns out the 500GB drive in there is a Western Digital. After some further investigating and plugging it into another power source, it looks like the drive is not spinning.
I have read about a "freezing" technique on the internet that has been suggested to get a failed drive to temporarily work. Then I can quickly copy all the data off of it before it dies again. Anybody hear or use this method with any success? Most people mentioned using this freeze method when the drives "clicks", but will it work with my non-spinning drive (it doesn't click)?
Like I said, its still under warranty and I plan to get a replacement, but that doesn't help me with the data on it & would like to possibly get the stuff off of it first if possible.
send the drive that's inside to WD for replacement, they'll give you a new one before having received the old one. You only get charged if you don't send the old one back. I wouldn't recommend the freezing technique, it's not proven and it may void both warranties.
