I know it sounds crazy but I assure you it is not - the following can sometimes work should you not be able to read anything from the drive:

Take disc drive out of machine, wrap in cling film (to prevent moisture ingress) and place in freezer overnight.

Take out of freezer, remove cling film and quickly put drive in a reader / back in machine.

The above is only a temporary fix but can allow you enough time to recover data from the drive provided you act quickly and get the data off before the mechanism heats up too much. If the drive goes bad too quickly once more, you may need to repeat the freezer cycle again and then try to extract the data very soon after removing from the freezer.

This has worked in the past for both 2.5" and 3.5" drives - the thought is that the different temperature causes the drive head to change its position slightly and allow the disc to work once more.

It is worth a try before going to the potential expense of a professional data recovery service.

John

808v6, M60, MC200, HD621, Lumagen XE, 504, SB Touch, 563, 201, 204, 208, MPMAX 221, M80, Explorer, Explorer2.