how to repair external hard drive after it was dropped?

Question

i recently dropped my external hard drive.. but mind you, it wasnt that far of a drop.. about 1 ft.. but right after that i couldnt access my files anymore.. it still lights up after i plug it in but what used to be a sound that i hear every time i use the drive, seems to have intensified.. is there any way i could have it up and running again?

Answer 1

Sounds like you're out of luck. Your best bet would be taking it to a place like Data Doctors if it's really important data on there, but it is very expensive to try and get data off broken hard disks.

From now on, always back up your data in at least one other place.

Answer 2

A hdd consists of a sealed steel casing maybe with some extra enclosure around it like a plastic covering or an external casing. Any defect within the steel casing you can't fix because a: such a defect would very likely be way to difficult to fix for even an experianced computer do-it-yourselver and b: opening the steel casing would for instance allow dust to come in making it also very likely that the hdd wouldn't operate properly afterwards. Hdd's should be opened in a cleanroom only and even computershops don't have those, they'd have to send the hdd back to the manufacturer or some specialized company. When there is some damage outside the steal casing like for instance some loose wire in an external casing there might be a chance you could repair it depending on your skills and luck. If you think it's the casing you might try to remove the hdd from it's external casing and place it in a new external casing. If the hdd doesn't contain important data just get a new one. If it does then there are companies specialized in retrieving data from broken hdd's but this wil be pricy i guess.

Answer 3

ok reformatting or taking to data doctors so to speak is drastic action and in most cases is not required.
the noise you may be hearing is the fan which may have been damaged in the fall.
the best thing to do is first open up the plastic (i presume) case, now see if there are any cables that may have come loose.
if not see if the control card (the circuit board that the poser supply and data cable plug in to) if that is damaged then you may need a new drive housing.
don't panic, they are very cheap to buy they sell the enclosures at www.dabs.com under £20 delivered i think (though i would have to check that).
if when the drive is powered up it is making a clicking sound that can be a sign that the power or data cable is loose or the drive is failing, it can be hard to tell exactly which in my experiance.

however the drive may be able to be removed from the external case and actually installed in your computer.
to do this if you have space inside your computer chasis, you can open the chasis, find a drive bay and install the drive.
connect the power cable and data cable (internal as your other drvies are connected)
once conencted internally you should find the drive in your my computer folder.
if not then the drive may be dead, so go through control panel etc. to use the drive tools to see if the drive is found but is not recognised properly or not formatted etc.
there realy is no hard or fast rule that is 100% applicable to this situation. you need to go through trial and error to solve your problem.
buying a new hard drive may be your last resort.
but a data doctor company that may charge hundreds of pounds to get your data back may have to be considered as they may need to take one or more of several options to recover your data which may include opening the drive and putting the disc in another drive.
the cases i'm thinking of are great they are aluminium and they work perfectly. take a look at the item below.
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3V64

if you need to get a new drive as a result then check this out:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400GB U100
quicklinx: 44FGWS | mfr#: ST3400620A
£78.84 inc vat

Answer 4

The heads on the drive are floating in a micro-cushion of air created by the spinning platter. The distance of the heads to the platters is about 1/2-1/4 the width of a hair.

when you dropped the drive, the effect is that the head makes contact with the platters and scribes the media on the disk and may even damage the head to where the head(s) are in constant contact with the platter and in this case you will have a whole series of scratches on the platters and now debris inside the drive case which goes on to cause further damage.

As one said, DataDoctors may be able to salvage your data if it is important...but the level of damage to the disk dictates your final cost of recovery....which could be in the thousands.

If you plan on ever recovering the data, do not turn the drive on any more ......leave it to the experts.

Answer 5

Hard drives are very fragile and by the sounds of things yours is damaged. They cant be repaired but if you take the drive to a computer repair shop they can get most or all of your data off the damaged drive.

Answer 6

u could try reformatting it .. delete partitions and start over ...