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I have been using a WD Elements 1.5TB HDD for the past 2~3 years. The USB connector to the drive has for the past few months been pretty unstable and finally today it seems to have completely removed itself from the USB board. I was wondering what would be the best steps to take from here as I have about 1.2TB of data that is extremely valuable to me still on the HDD, which I can no longer access.

I took two photos of the HD and the situation with the USB connector, but I am unable to actually upload photos until I have a certain number of reputation points?

Any advice would be welcome. Thank you in advance.

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You can upload the photos to tinypic.com and I will insert them in the question. Just tell us the link. – Telaclavo May 4 '12 at 13:01
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If the HDD is relatively new, you can simply open the enclosure and remove the HDD. It will have same SATA connectors that are used by desktop (and laptop) computers and use it as a regular HDD. The USB socket will most likely be replaceable, but as Telaclavo said, we'll have to see pictures to tell you what to look for. – AndrejaKo May 4 '12 at 13:13
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ALL hard disks fail - sometime between 20 years and 20 minutes after being placed into service. NEVER rely on a single hard disk as a store for valuable data. Never rely on a single device of any sort for storage of valuable data. I have seen people lose whole books, PhD theses, a year of lesson plans, accounting data and more due to a lack of backup. Backup often! Backup now. || {I have some advice on how to deal with you present problem but will wait and see if it gets covered by others first as it probably will and I'm working on an urgent job. } – Russell McMahon May 4 '12 at 13:21
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@Russell - I often have the impression that I'm the only person in the world who makes backups (daily!). – stevenvh May 4 '12 at 13:33
@stevenvh - No, it's just reporting bias - No one makes news of "My hard drive failed but it was no big deal because I have backups." They will, however, inquire vigorously about how to fix a drive if they have no backups. – Kevin Vermeer May 4 '12 at 14:19
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closed as off topic by Brian Carlton, Madmanguruman, Kevin Vermeer May 4 '12 at 21:04

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