I bought a SATA-to-USB adapter to access an older hard drive containing important family photos and videos. I have two similar drives, and the adapter works normally with the other one. This drive first started showing data errors, including cyclic redundancy check errors, so I tried several recovery and repair tools, including EaseUS, HDDScan, and commands from an administrator terminal. After restarting my computer with the drive connected, Windows 11 took an unusually long time to boot. Now the drive does not appear in File Explorer, does not spin, and the adapter's activity light stays off. The drive does become slightly warm near the spindle area, but I have not opened it. Is there anything safe I can try to recover the data, even if the drive itself cannot be repaired?
2 Answers
If the adapter works with another drive but this one is not detected or spinning, the hard drive itself has probably failed. Since the files are important, stop running repair software and avoid repeatedly powering it on, because that can make recovery harder. A professional data-recovery service may be able to extract the files, but it can be expensive.
The exact drive model, size, and whether it is a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch disk would matter for troubleshooting. Some larger desktop drives need a separate power supply, but because this drive previously worked and is now not spinning while another drive works with the same setup, a hardware failure is the most likely explanation.
I mainly want to recover the photos and videos, even if the drive cannot be repaired. I understand that professional recovery may be my only realistic option now.