Faulty USB Drive

[alphatoner]

My daughter stores all her media on an external 500gb Seagate drive. Sadly she has never backed it up (despite telling her she should) and as you have probably guessed the worst has happened and it has died. It has power (the light is on and makes a whirring noise) but never appears as a drive in explorer.

Now I can probably get my money back but that is really a minor consideration. The media is what's important. She tell me the drive fell off her bed when she unplugged it. I am wondering if a connectors inside has just come loose. The casework is sealed, but is it worth splitting it open to have a look?

Anybody every had success with this sort of problem?

Cheers

 

[hearingisbelieving]

Wouldn't this be better off being posted in the Computer based Hifi section Ian - or am I being naive? :roll:

 

[brystonian]

Quite often when a external drive fails its the controller board and the drive itself is fine. I've disassembled a few and installed the drive in a PC to get the files back.

 

[hermit]

Quite often when a external drive fails its the controller board and the drive itself is fine. I've disassembled a few and installed the drive in a PC to get the files back.

you can always buy an external hdd caddy to mount the drive in if you dont have a desktop pc. They cost about £20

 

[drummerjohn]

Quite often when a external drive fails its the controller board and the drive itself is fine. I've disassembled a few and installed the drive in a PC to get the files back.

Not if it's been dropped as OP states.

 

[drummerjohn]

Crack it open anyway, you have nothing to lose, and check for loose connections.

With your ear near the drive...

Power it on do you hear it spin up? No = dead drive.

Do you hear any ticking or clicking in a repetitive pattern? Yes = dead drive.

If it does tick\click does it spin down after a short period ie 60 secs? Yes = dead drive.

Did she power it off then drop it within 10-15 seconds? Yes = dead drive.

 

[budgetblown]

as long as you can crack it without leaving a trace - as this WILL render the warranty VOID - it's not going to hurt to put the HDD into an external drive caddy and give it a try.

This happened to me. On my birthday. I lost much FLAC.

 

[smegger68]

There is an old saying in the IT industry: 'Data you don't have backed up is data you don't want to keep'.

It seems that people almost always learn this lesson the hard way. Disk drives are mechanical devices - eventually they WILL fail. Dropping them off beds will certainly hasten their demise.

If you want to send it to me I can run a diagnostic on the drive and tell you one way or another if the data is retrievable, and do the restore if it is. I'm a computer engineer, it's my job. PM me if you are interested.

 

[alphatoner]

Well my thoughts were I've nothing to loose. but to answer DJ's points

plug in get 10 beeps

light comes on and blinks (should be stable)

continues for appx 20 more beeps then stops

Light continues to blink.

- - - Updated - - -

There is an old saying in the IT industry: 'Data you don't have backed up is data you don't want to keep'. It seems that people almost always learn this lesson the hard way. Disk drives are mechanical devices - eventually they WILL fail. Dropping them off beds will certainly hasten their demise.

If you want to send it to me I can run a diagnostic on the drive and tell you one way or another if the data is retrievable, and do the restore if it is. I'm a computer engineer, it's my job. PM me if you are interested.

PM sent :^