My external hard drive has stopped being recognized on any computer. It shows up as an unnamed drive and, if clicked on, says it's not formatted. I've tried using a different USB cable and that didn't work either.

It's mostly used for digital photo storage, most of which are backed up elsewhere, however the most recent had not been backed up yet, and there are many I'd hate to lose. (Sigh, yes, I know...unwise and lesson learned.)

Other than Geek Squad, does anyone recommend a local business for this type of data recovery?

you cannot afford 'Professional' DR


$ 100 per megabyte - and that was 7 yrs ago

and that is NO guarantee anything will be recovered


although maybe it has gotten cheaper


professional drive recovery cost (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=professional+drive+recovery+cost&oq=professional+drive+recovery+cost&aq=f&aqi=q-w1&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1583l13372l0l13477l36l28l2l5l5l5l543l7957l1.5.10.7.1.3l35l0&gs_l=hp.3..33i21.1583l13372l0l13478l36l28l2l5l5l5l543l7957l1j5j10j7j1j3l35l0&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=bfbad756b3e0f08f&biw=1464&bih=993)

My external hard drive has stopped being recognized on any computer. It shows up as an unnamed drive and, if clicked on, says it's not formatted. I've tried using a different USB cable and that didn't work either.

It's mostly used for digital photo storage, most of which are backed up elsewhere, however the most recent had not been backed up yet, and there are many I'd hate to lose. (Sigh, yes, I know...unwise and lesson learned.)

Other than Geek Squad, does anyone recommend a local business for this type of data recovery?

I had this happen to me. Usually an external USB hard drive is a regular computer hard drive packaged in a case with a USB to ATA adapter board. What usually goes bad the the adapter board. Open the case, remove the hard drive and install it in your descktop as a secondary drive. Should work. If you only have a laptop then you can get a USB to Hard Drive adapter cable that will power the drive and allow access. I have recovered many files this way. It is way easier than it sounds.
Hope this helps.

I had this happen to me. Usually an external USB hard drive is a regular computer hard drive packaged in a case with a USB to ATA adapter board. What usually goes bad the the adapter board. Open the case, remove the hard drive and install it in your descktop as a secondary drive. Should work. If you only have a laptop then you can get a USB to Hard Drive adapter cable that will power the drive and allow access. I have recovered many files this way. It is way easier than it sounds.
Hope this helps.

They also have replacement cases for external drives. I may try to re-house it in a new case first and, if that fails, bring up the desktop we no longer use and get it running to try your fix. If both of those fail, guess I better turn to the Geeks- cha-ching!
I'd really like to get those files. Thanks for the advice.

You may also want to try booting your computer from a Linux live-CD and seeing if you can access the drive in a different OS. Most likely it is the adapter, as others have suggested, but it could be a problem with your OS or caused by your OS (which I assume is Windows).

My external hard drive has stopped being recognized on any computer. It shows up as an unnamed drive and, if clicked on, says it's not formatted. I've tried using a different USB cable and that didn't work either.

It's mostly used for digital photo storage, most of which are backed up elsewhere, however the most recent had not been backed up yet, and there are many I'd hate to lose. (Sigh, yes, I know...unwise and lesson learned.)

Other than Geek Squad, does anyone recommend a local business for this type of data recovery?

Look at the drive... If the controller is an Agere chip you can probably get it fixed... If it says LSI, then Its mine and you're screwed.