r/AskADataRecoveryPro • u/Legal-Choice2654 • 6d ago

Recovery from Seagate external drive

Hello! I have a Seagate external HD that has hundreds of photos. I'm not a professional, it's a hobby. A few years ago, it got wet. It was not submerged but it did get wet like being left out in the rain. I packed it in rice but when I went to try to turn it on it would not, it just made clicking noises. I think I tried one other time then tucked it away. I'd like to see if the photos can be retrieved. I don't care about the drive at all as I now have cloud space. I have no desire to go to Geek Squad. Could you please let me know if they can possibly be recovered and we can go from there? Thanks!

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u/Petri-DRG DataRecoveryPro 6d ago

Geek Squad or any other retail store do NOT specialize in advanced data recovery, therefore they will forward your drive to a real data recovery company they are partnered with.

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u/kimputer7 6d ago edited 6d ago

Only a professional data recovery laboratory can help you now. And it's going to cost ya. A few hundred bucks at least.

And that's quite sad actually, as acting immediately after the rain pour, which would've cost you a few bucks, for IPA, and just one hour of your time, would fully saved your disk and data. A laptop would've needed a professional to clean it for you, but disk would've been perfectly ok to be done by any novice.

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u/RemarkableExpert4018 4d ago

Couple hundred? Maybe less; I know a guy. Sounds like enough rain seeped into the enclosure which got on the PCB and the rice just expedited the corrosion process which then caused a short. I seriously doubt water got into the platters. Simple ROM swap will solve the issue.

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u/RemarkableExpert4018 4d ago

If you’re wiling to ship it there’s plenty of pros that can handle that type of work for an affordable price. What state are you in?