Dropped my external hard drive?

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 and started clicking.. is there any way i could have it up and running again? Daughters birth photos etc.....

Answer 1

sounds like a dead drive I'm afraid. hard drives are very sensitive pieces of equipment. the actual reading head is that close to the actual disc inside, you cant put a human hair between it.
by dropping your hdd you have probably done irreversible damage. even if you did get it working the chances are you got bad sectors all over the drive plus damaged the boot up of the operating system.

Answer 2

Put the drive in a freezer overnight. Next day, try and back up the drive. Temperature variations can change tolerances and you may get lucky.

The read head runs on a magnetic coil and it's alignment is critical. Your drop has caused it to get out of tolerance. The head may have also contacted the surface, which will certainly do data damage, but not to all of it.

The clicking you hear is the head pulling out of the read area and banging against the stop, attempting to shake off any debris and then re-trying the operation.

Barring that, no regular computer shop can help you. If you have data you absolutely need to get off the drive, then send it to a data clean-room hard disk repair shop. They will disassemble the drive and move the platter to a standards reader that will get your data, but it will cost you about $500 on the average.

Answer 3

Take it to a computer repair shop. Sounds like you've dislodged some running components.

Answer 4

only way mate take it to a shop

Answer 5

bin it get a new one