hdd fail after 2 years of use is that normal for toshiba a 1,6 inch 80 gb drive

[maximum4you]

is the lifetime for a mini toshiba hdd drive that short ...  and how do i get data back now that the drive is without a normal connection only a flat cable ....

[davezorz]

Hey, maximum4you. Sorry to hear that it failed! As far as lifespan, I'd say that is rather short... they usually last 3-5 years. Now, what exactly do you mean by "a flat cable"? They make external drive bays, but if the drive itself failed, then chances are they will help you any.

[banhien]

Hi,

As mentioned in the above reply, very hard to say because Toshiba is one of the manufactures that make a lot of HDD's for laptops, not just for Toshiba laptops but also for other brands. I've got 2 Toshiba laptops, HDD of the bigger one failed after around 4 years, HDD of the second one is still ok after 7 years. I'm not using it now (it's 11 yrs old now) but still nothing wrong with it.

Regards

[maximum4you]

forgot it is a mini 732eo 10 inch PC and the drive is same type as used in ipod and the connection to the drive is a flat cable pushed into drive and locked with clamp the test performed in bios state read failure and replace drive and i haven't found a connector so i can connect the damaged drive to my other PC. for saving lost data ... can i boot on external drive with maybe linux and that way save data from drive ? can linux see the fat formatted  drive ?

[davezorz · Accepted solution]

That was actually going to be my next suggestion. If you're technical enough, you can use a Linux boot CD, or in your case, USB drive. I have had multiple instances where doing this on a failed HDD still allows me to pull some data off. Not always all, but it's worth a shot for sure! And even if it doesn't work, you always have the USB drive to utilize.