Backup external drive

johnphpnewb · June 2, 2019, 1:38pm

Hello, does anyone know how to backup an external harddrive without a power supply? is there an adaptor available like an icy box? i have an icy box but it only works for internal hd. In particular, i need to get the data from a seagate backup plus drive. The power cable is broken and importing seems impossible. I can try to ask a local electrician if the cable can be repaired or not. The problem with the adaptor is that it is North American and not available for sale in Germany. I assume that the inner workings of a Seagate Backup plus are actual plates, which means that i have no idea how to copy the data without a power supply.

any ideas?

johnphpnewb · June 2, 2019, 1:56pm

is a docking cloning station what i need here?

JimL · June 2, 2019, 5:21pm

Most external harddrives are just normal harddrives with a enclosure around it. Which one do you have? Or if you want to check yourself just google “your external drive shuck” and you should get results ^^

johnphpnewb · June 2, 2019, 6:36pm

Hello Jim and Thank you for helping. I didn’t know what is inside. I’ve never opened one before. I have multiple Seagate drives and each one has a different power supply adaptor - which is irritating. I have over 500,000 wildlife photos on my drive, so it is very important for me to back it up (twice now).

since it is a normal drive, then i guess that i could attach it to a pc. However, the only desktop pc that i have in my possession, at this time, is a an old xp. I’m not sure if it will read a 3tb drive but the ram is too low for me to copy files. I will try this docking station first. My Wife just ordered one today.

I have the Seagate Backup Plus Desktop Drive model number srd0sd1 (3TB)

JimL · June 2, 2019, 6:51pm

Then you should be fine with the docking station. There are even videos on how to take it apart on youtube. Please never have important data on a single drive

johnphpnewb · June 2, 2019, 7:06pm

Thank you, Jim. I will try the docking station as soon as i get it. I am angry at myself for not backing up this data. I get lazy because it takes so long to copy one day of photography. Sometimes my folder is over 10GB for a day. I have some of the data on my internal drive still but nothing from 2016 or 2015. All of that dat is on this drive with the broken adaptor. I hope that the docking station works. Nay, what i mean is that i hope that the adaptor didn’t short out and cause a problem with the drive.

Meantime, i will watch this video now. I need to preapre for the arrival of the docking station. I guess it could arrive tomorrow. The thing that bothers me most is that my microscopic work is on the drive and i have never backed it up. I need this data. All of my dissections and identifications are on the drive. I got lazy. BIG mistake.

JimL · June 2, 2019, 7:09pm

I think all of these enclosures have a small logic board between the power/interface and the drive so most wrecked external hard drives is either mechanical failures or something has fried the board (of the enclosure). Hopefully you are fine

johnphpnewb · June 2, 2019, 7:14pm

Thank you Jim and i forgot to thank you for the link to backblaze. I will read this page from BackBlaze too. I need to kick myself in the behind and start backing up my data consistently. Nomore laziness. I’m going to use every resource available to make backups at this point. Another drive isn’t good enough. BackBlaze sounds good.

Thanks Jim!

JimL · June 2, 2019, 7:17pm

I’d say online backup solutions have become so cheap now there is no reason not to use one or two of these to back up your data.

My photos and documents are backed up automatically and incrementally (extremely important) to an external HDD, my NAS and two cloud providers (encrypted). The reason I stress incremental backups is in the case of corruption, either by some natural reason, mechanical failure, bit rot, crypto viruses, etc. If any of those happen to any of my files I can simply revert it (or entire folders) to any point in the past.

johnphpnewb · June 3, 2019, 3:20pm

okay, so i got this docking station but i have a problem!
Windows shows the drive as RAW and requests a format.
what happened? is this docking station creating the problem?
will i get the same thing if i attach it to a pc?
electrically speaking, could i swap drives to use the other shell with a working adaptor?

or does this mean that the drive is damaged? i do not hear clicking noises. the drive sounds healthy when it boots.

johnphpnewb · June 3, 2019, 3:52pm

never mind. i got angry and tried this:
i have another seagate with a north american adaptor. for some reason (money, i guess), seagate decided to make each drive use a different power adaptor. So using the other power adaptor doesn’t work on this drive. However!, if we swap drives - thus, disconnect the end piece with a push of the thumbs and connect it to the other drive - then the drive will boot with the now compatible adaptor.

to summarize: pop the end piece off of the drive with the working adaptor and pop the end piece off of the drive without a working adaptor. use the working adaptor’s end piece on the drive needing back up. voila! the drive is working again.

now, about the docking station: other people have reported that it isn’t working with a 3tb drive. so this equates to waste of time and money. I suppose that i will keep it but everyone should know that this is a problem with large drives.