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How to fix an external hard drive after a fall of 50cm high? or at least recover the data? It was not moving, it makes no noise Bizard, the green LED is on as usual but it is not detected by the computer and when it is plugged in the mouse (also connected by usb) does no longer works. I tried with another usb cable, nothing happens.
Solution:
- Figure out whether you need a hardware or software fix. Look for grinding sounds from your drive or humming that starts or stops. These are signs that the actuator arm and discs are no longer in alignment and your drive is timing out. If it seems as though nothing is wrong with your hard drive, it's probably time for a software fix.
- Run one of the many software fixes, if you think the problem is related to software. These programs feature on-screen directions, making it easy for you to progress through them. If this works, you don't need to fix a physical problem.
- Remove the many tiny screws that holds the drive together. Eventually, you'll get to the innards of your drive. Be very careful not to bend or force a piece to go where it doesn't want to.
- Determine if you've set things straight. Look to see whether anything was loose inside your external hard drive. If you have recently dropped it or traveled with it, it is possible that something came loose. Also check that all the arms and platters are straight and do not appear bent in any way. If they are bent, straighten them with your hands or pliers.
- Put everything back together and check that everything in your external hard drive is working properly.
- Try using the external hard drive on another computer. Maybe your computer or USB port is the problem and needs replaced.
A friend of mine recently had two daisy chained LaCie hard drives fail on him. Unfortunately, one was backing up the other. He bought a new LaCie and plugged it in and copied a recent job that he was prepping for delivery over to the new drive. Then his computer gave up the ghost and shut down for good. He bought a new computer, plugged in the hard drives hoping for the best but none of them would mount - including his brand new LaCie. Before shelling out a couple of thousand bucks for hard drive recovery, he brought the drives to the Image Mechanics studio for us to take a crack at.
If a hard drive makes an ominous clicking sound, it is about to die. Get your data copied immediately. Failure after a clicking noise usually means data recovery where they replace the hard drive controller or pull the platters out of your drive and rebuild them in a new mechanism (this is why data recovery is expensive).
If multiple external drives fail simultaneously, it is probably due to a power surge on your firewire port that burns out the controller in your enclosure. Remember that the drive inside your firewire enclosure is an ATA or SATA drive just like inside your computer. There is a firewire bridge that converts ATA to firewire. This bridge or controller is often the failure point.
We cracked open his LaCie drives, pulled the bare hard drive out and hooked it up to our Wiebetech DriveDock. His drives were fine. We sent him over to our friends at Melrose Mac to get a new enclosure for his bare hard drive and he lived happily ever after.
Your best bet is to send the unit to a data recovery specialist. Dropped drives usually have some sort of physical damage that precludes attempting to use data recovery software.
Try Seagate Recovery Services. Be prepared to spend $1000-$2000 to have the data recovered, if it's recoverable at all.
First, before you do anything! Try the Defrag option. Clean up the data on the drive, that's very important. If after you do that, it still doesn't work, ask yourself how important the information on it is to you. If you decide you don't care about the information then just get another hard drive, but if you want the information then look for some one that has the tools to get your information off of the hard drive and then get a new one.
Whatever you do don't just throw it away. Find out you options and then make a decision based on the options given to you.
Price, time, etc and so on. Just don't throw it away if you don't have to. There might be something on there that you treasure!
The only thing you may try to do is plug your hard drive to another computer, and use data recovery software to recover data on that disk. I am not sure if you can recover or not. There is one software I may recommend you, Diskgetor.