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Here are a couple of data recovery enquiries I received about the feasibility of getting the files back from Seagate and Drevo hard drives that are no longer showing up.

I have a samsung M3 Portable hard drive (now Seagate) which has just stopped working. When you plug it in with the USB it very quietly makes a repetitive tonal sound that is internal to the device and sounds like it isn’t able to work – almost like when a CD skips, but not quite. It usually hums as soon as you plug it in, but it sounds unable to. The light on the device, however, does come on. The drive does not show up where it usually does on my laptop, although the laptop knows the USB is connected. I’m sure it’s a problem with the drive and not my laptop, as I’ve tried it on 2 different laptops. It is a personal drive (not work related) so it’s not essential I recover the files on it, but I would really like to, as there are photos and so forth on it. Any hope?

My Drevo X1 Pro SATA III 256gb SSD hard drive has failed. I'd had problems with my MacBook Pro previously, where it couldn't connect to my old HDD. Replaced it with an SSD, still couldn't connect. Replaced the hard drive cable, which solved the problem. All working fine until one day out of the blue I had the same issue again. The MacBook couldn't find the SSD or boot up etc. Initially thought it was the same problem, ordered a new hard drive cable, but that didn't fix the problem. Took it to the campus IT shop, they ran some tests, came to the conclusion that the hard drive was faulty, as he couldn't connect to it from his systems either. His comments on the invoice were as follows: "Cannot pick up SSD hard disk. Tested hard disk in a another PC – also not picked up either in bios or macdrive diagnostic software. Tested the cable with known good Mac hard disk – ok. Conclusion – faulty Drevo SSD hard disk." He also said that it looked like whatever connectors there were in there, that they could be faulty.

My comment: Until I've taken a good look at each drive to discover what's wrong, I'm not able to say if I can recover the files. From the symptoms above, I', hopeful that I can get the drives showing up again and retrieve the files, but I really do need to diagnose them first

Recovering data files from SSD hard drives can be a big of a black art - these hard drives are completely different on the component level - no moving parts, and the data is stored to memory cells rather than a rotating magnetic disk. Here's an interesting enquiry from someone wanting their data back from one of these:

"I had an OWC Aura SSD in my Macbook Pro until Sunday until it stopped mounting when booting up my laptop. I've removed it and put the old original SSD for now. It uses the Sandforce 2281 controller, which I understand makes things very difficult to recover data. Are you aware of any options I have for recovering the data?"

It really depends on what the trouble is with the controller or the SSD main body. Until I have a close look at it I won't know what they problem is. In the meantime have you thought about looking on the web and trying some DIY data recovery on it yourself? Sites like Data Recovery Tips provide excellent advice on what people can try themselves to retrieve inaccessible data from their hard drives. My first recommendation is therefore to browse this site and see if you can find any useful information. If you are still stuck please come back to me and I'll see if I can recover the data for you.