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My Maxtor drive (Seagate disk??) won't mount. Where should I send it?

skylar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:05:20 -0800

My Maxtor Basics 1 terabyte external USB 2.0 drive no longer mounts. I have been through all the usual stuff with tech support (including disk management and device management) and I've tried it on multiple computers. Although the green light comes on when it's plugged into USB, apart from that it's not talking to the computer. There has been no strange noise, clicking, smoke or smell. Maxtor tech support say it's a failed drive. A data recovery company I phoned said it's probably damaged firmware but the data on the disk is probably safe. I'm nervous about sending it to a data recovery company because I seem to be looking at about GBP £179 minimum or maybe many, many hundreds more. Is it likely to be a matter of simply soldering something here or replacing something there, ie a job that I could take to a local geek? Or should I be looking to take this to a major data recovery centre? I'm in London, UK.

What happens if the power fails during defrag?

davehat — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:43:02 -0800

I need to de-frag an external drive, but the power where I live is very flaky. Would a power failure cause me to lose my data? I have a 200gb Maxtor Onetouch II and it's very fragmented and is starting to slow down noticeably. I want to de-frag it, but we average about 1-2 power cuts every day or so here in Kisumu and I'm worried id this happens during the process, it will ruin the drive.

Should I go ahead and de-frag, or am I certain to corrupt my drive in the event of power failure?

getting a UPS to shut down an external drive

krunk — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:46:45 -0800

If I have a power cut when I'm not at my computer, my UPS will keep my computers running until Windows can close down automatically and gracefully. But how do I get my Maxtor network storage to shut down? The UPS interface allows windows to call software before it closes...what software do I call to close my drive down? Or is the drive safe if it has its power cut off?