"Cyclic redundnacy check" on backup HD: Is it likely toast?

Trying to back up some old photos I pulled out a Toshiba hard drive and connected it to the computer and got the "Cyclic Redundancy Check" error. No access to anything on the drive from multiple computers.

This drive has my wife's photo collection backed up on it, going all the way back to when she got her first digital camera around 2002 or so, through 2017 when she got a new computer. Fortunately files from 2017 on are backed up in multiple places but the older ones appear to only be on this one.

I googled it, ran the CHKDSK and SFC SCAN utilities with no result. I downloaded a "recovery tool" that is running now.

If this is not successful, what are my options? Would it be worth it to try and have the data recovered by a computer data recovery service?

It's not life or death, but we would like to recover the photos, at least, if at all possible.

As for places that do this, can anyone recommend anything in SoCO (Pueblo/Springs?)

While I have no references for you, there are high end reputable places (usually requiring you to mail the HDD to them) them can do absolute magic with data recovery, even on physically damaged/destroyed drives. BUT... those places do charge a pretty penny for their services because the tools aren't cheap and the time required for the data recovery is high.

Not an expert. But I would check if there is a Linux utility for this. Then just put an image on an usb stick and boot your pic in Linux and try the utilities they have. Maybe windows has just as good utilities but last time I tried to recover a flash drive the windows stuff cost a bunch and failed to perform good enough.

If you have a modicum mechanical aptitude and access to an identical working drive, try swapping the electronics (board) on the drive itself.

If it was a head crash the damage is done. If it's the electronics, swapping boards should bring it back to life.

O2

...worked in disk drives and storage at DEC and HP for my entire career.

Oh, good thought, O2... I remember when I used to put new circuit boards on drives to try and recover them.

CRC error, is normally a pretty low level error, and can be an error on a single sector, etc.

What you don't want to do right now, is make it worse. Find a person or service that says they can recover drives, and ask them to back it up, before they begin.

-John

Micro center. I couldn’t get a drive restored that seemed to be dead using the software suggested by a RKI on this stuff. Once I failed I took it to micro center and $200 later which included a replacement drive I had all my data back.

Well, after doing some Googling I downloaded a "recovery" program (Stellar Data Recovery) that seems to have a good online reputation. It's been running now for several hours. The "Preview" window shows intact files as well as the file structure so fingers crossed that this will do it.

If that doesn't work and I can't get the program to restore the files, I'll likely try the Microcenter route (or some data recovery place in SoCO. Maybe in the Springs?)