Lacie Big Disk Extreme+ - Must Recover Data

[Donny Mann]

After some warning signs in the last few weeks (not ejected properly, drive icon disappearing from desktop) my Lace BigDisk Extreme 1TB Drive is now seemingly gone forever. No backup.

Not ejected properly warnings were inappropriate as I never unplugged it ... icon disappearing - I simply pulled to power supply pin out of the back and re-inserted it and it came back. Now it-s gone. Lacie has sent a new power supply to me but it did not solve the problem ... the power supply brick light blinks very faintly .. when I pull the p/s pin out of the drive, the power supply brick lights up solid green.

This type of failure seems to be a common occurence. Anyways, I need to recover the data if possible. My options seem to be:

1. Pay a data recovery service $600+ (OUCH !!)

2. Buy the current version of the Lacie that I have and swap out the disks, so that I can at least get to the data. I believe that the current version is the:
d2 Quadra Hard Disk 1 TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 .. does anyone know for sure?

3. Buy some other lower priced enclosure with usb or firewire interface to get to the data (but I don't have a clue what to buy)

Does anyone know if either options 2 or 3 will work and which would be the least painful to deal with? I'm not a hardware guy

Lastly, I cannot get the screw off of the back of my dead Lacie drive .. it appears to be a small phillips head but it turns out it's not. What tool do I need to get it off? Or is it opened up some other way?

If anyone could guide me thru the steps to recovery it would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Donny

 

[Mariposa-]

I can't directly help you but it may help to read the informative reply I received concerning my failing 500Gb LaCie drive. Scroll down 20 posts to the one titled "LaCie drive failed AFTER new power supply" posted by Mariposa.

The link to the "diskwarrior" program may be useful to you.

Hopefully someone here will be able to assist you.
Best Wishes

 

[Donny Mann]

Reply

Mariposa,

Thanks for your post .. Unless I'm mistaken though, diskwarrior will not work if the drive is not powered on - which is the case here.

Donny

 

[Fishrrman]

Whatever you do, DO NOT buy another LaCie external drive. An old saying -- "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!"

I suggest you get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0
(many options shown, pick the one you like)

Then, take the drive OUT of the LaCie enclosure (you will have to ascertain what kind of screwdriver you need to open it, if they are not phillips-head they are probably "TORX" screws -- take the drive right to a Home Depot or Lowes or hardware store and get assistance).

Put the "bare drive" into the dock, connect it to the Mac, and see what happens.

See if you can "get at it" with Disk Utility.

If that doesn't work, you might consider "Disk Warrior". It often corrects directory problems when nothing else will.

If even DW can't "heal" the directory, the problems may be worse than can be "repaired" by any software that does such things.

If you get that far and believe that to be the case, don't give up hope. You can STILL "get at" the data, but it's "a journey" to do so. It involves buying _another_ bare drive of equal size, perhaps even getting another dock (so that you have capabilities to "dock up" TWO drives), and using something like DataRescue3 or Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery to recover the files.

You might even have to re-initalize the drive (yes, what I said) and then use file recovery software to "scavenge" the drive for recoverable files.

But that's getting too far along the road.

The first step is to get the drive OUT OF the LaCie enclosure and INTO a dock. Once you do this, you will know whether the problem is with the enclosure itself, or is actually a problem with the hard drive inside.

 

[reebzor]

Give LaCie support a shot. The same thing happened to one of my friends and LaCie just sent him a new powersupply. It's honestly probably JUST the powersupply that is the problem. You might get lucky and still be able to recover your data

 

[miles01110]

Give LaCie support a shot. The same thing happened to one of my friends and LaCie just sent him a new powersupply. It's honestly probably JUST the powersupply that is the problem. You might get lucky and still be able to recover your data

Did you even read the original post? They already sent a new power supply and it didn't solve the problem.

 

[Donny Mann]

Reply

I should mention that:

the failed unit uses 2 drives (500GB each) to get the stated capacity (1TB) in a RAID 0 format, which are very possibly parallel ATA (IDE) drives. The RAID 0 format interleaves data between the 2 drives.

Does this lean towards the option of buying a used identical drive?

OR

Giving up altogether?

Donny

 

[jampat]

RAID 0 is not the way to store data. If either drive dies, all of the data from both is gone. RAID 0 is the least reliable storage system available. Even if you replaced one of the drives with an identical drive, that wouldn't help (this would work for RAID 1, not for RAID 0). Some computers can do software RAID 0, I am not sure if you could pop the drives out of the case and use the computer to recover the data. Alternatively, look around for a used Lacie BigDisk Extreme 1TB Drive and pop your drives in it. Copy of all the data and then smash all of the hardware (cathartic and keeps someone else from losing their stuff too). I have no idea if all RAID 0 is compatible though. The same controller may work, or maybe you need the same version of the same controller.

Hopefully you can get your data back and have learned the value of backing up now. Hard drives are cheap now, the amount of money that it costs to recover anything (yet alone time) exceeds the cost of a proper backup strategy many times over.

 

[Donny Mann]

Raid Reconstruction Software

What is the best choice for MacBook Pro Snow leopard?
Need to recover 2 500GB drives striped Raid 0

Donny