External Hard Drive........data Recovery Software?

[squidgelet10]

Greetings each.
I have this 160Gb Seagate Barracuda IDE HDD which I have been using for off-comp storage for around four years, mounted in a USB "caddy" box, without problems. Suddenly it has decided to lock-up, so I cannot access the stored files.
When I try to open the thing I get the following message box: "D:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". The same message also appeared when I removed the drive from the box and tried to read it on two different comps.
Do any of you bright sparks know of any decent free/cheap data recovery software progs, please? The disk is spinning OK so should, in theory, be readable surely?
Be good!
Cheers.
Mike C.

[Sharingan]

Try Recuva, I've used it for other things but never had a external drive go down.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[Quoi]

Sounds like the connection / cable - can you check the drive for bent pins etc at the rear?
I bought a caddy from ebay and it works intermittently on some IDE drives & not on others - but in your case it was working before.

[Wak]

There's also "PixFix" and "Fast File Undelete"

[squidgelet10]

Hi Sharingan and Quoi.
Thanks for your answers.
Recuva did absolutely zilch as, although the disk appears on this comp as Drive D:, the error message "Filepath does not exist" kept appearing!
Quoi: There are no bent pins etc at the rear. I have run the disk as a "slave" in two different comps, including this one, without being able to access any files.
Cheers.
Mike C.

[squidgelet10]

"Too late! Too late!", the maiden cried. :-( I paid my local computer techie to do it in the end as he has pro software and the files were needed quickly.
I will keep that link for next time, 'cos there is bound to be one!
Stay good!
Cheers.
Mike C.

[squidgelet10]

PS Wot's this all about then please?
>For hard drive recovery ,you'd better not cover the data.

[squidgelet10]

Hi "colinpaul".
I thank you for that and will keep the reference for the next time it happens, if ever.
Meanwhile this particular topic is well dead and buried. :-)
Be good!
Cheers.
Mike C.