How To Access Hard Drive if Router Fails (Help?)

[zuluzee]

My WL 700ge has gone thru the same problems - blinking blue lights - can't load up etc... read all the threads and had difficulty executing the instructions as I'm Mac/Apple based and can't seem to reinstall the firmware.

I then brought my WHITE BRICK over to the ASUS dealer and they were really helpful - and service exceeded my expectations when they whipped out a new WHITE BRICK and gave it to me... told me that that's what they are supposed to do and that they don't do data recovery on the hard drive.... !!!! I broke a cold sweat as I'd just moved some wedding pictures into the drive as TEMP STORAGE and don't have a back up ...


This is what I have:

1. They have swapped an entire new router and loaned me the hard drive so that I can attempt date recovery...

2. I am attempting to use some data recovery tool on PC to try to recover this - but I'm not sure if I can do it as its taken a full day for the computer to read the drive and extract information.

3. I am sure that there is no FATAL ERROR on the drive and that it's not a mechanical failure.

4. The information on the drive is still intact - when we swapped the drive on the router (at the ASUS service center) and tried to re-boot the router, we managed to access the drive for a while - but after that it just failed to boot up again.

So here is my question:
a. How can I access information on my old ASUS WL 700ge hard drive?
b. Are there options for me to read and retrieve my information without reinstalling the firmware?

Can someone help me and advice me as to how I can recover this data that had been previously stored on my hard drive - there is nothing wrong with the drive - just that the firmware has corrupted and the WHITE BRICK is unable to boot up and allow me to

Would appreciate any help that I can get with this - cause I'm in deep POO POO when my wife finds out that it was my smart idea to store the wedding photos in the hard drive (sigh)
Edit/Delete Message

[gratitude182]

is the hd in the router or have you build out it (or can you build out it)? so you could try to take a knoppix cd to read the data from the hd.

grat182

[mistraller]

Emergency Recovery plan:

Step 1) NEVER LET ANY DEVICE BOOT FROM THE DRIVE!!! This is first and most important rule when it comes to data recovery. Booting means usually also writing to the drive.
Step 2) Connect the drive to a pc, or better, use an USB enclosure.
Step 2.5) If you want to be sure: Use Gnome Partition editor to make an exact copy of the drive to another. Now you can mess with the copy, while the original will stay untouched.
Step 3) If you had Fat16, fat32, or ntfs partitions on your drive, use a Windows tool like Getdataback etc, Personally I prefer EasyRecovery.
Step 4) if drive is formatted with ext2/3 boot your pc with knoppix and see if you can access your files.
Step 5) if you have the feeling you cannot access your files, consider a professional data recovery service (see also Easyrecovery or others). It will cost you a lot but they can do a lot for you.

Another option; Take a look on the original location where your pictures were before, maybe it's easier to undelete the files from your own computer.

Good Luck!