broken usb harddrive..

my gf dropped her usb hard drive on the floor from a height of about 4 feet, and now, oddly enough, there's something wrong with it..

when i plug in in the computer, the power indicator light goes on, but nothing else happens. when i put my ear close to the disk, it sounds like the disk is unable to start spinning fast enough, or even at all.. you can hear the needle for a while, but it eventually stops working...

is there something i can do to fix this without loosing all the stuff on it?

i know this might be the wrong place for this stuff, but it's the only online forum where i've got an account... all help greatly appreciated ..

 

You can try it on another computer to confirm that the problem is the hard drive. It probably won't work. If it doesn't work, don't try to use it anymore, as you will probably only damage it more if you try to use it more frequently.

You can also find a "data recovery" company in your area, that will open up the hard drive and replace broken parts. There's no guarantee that your data will be recovered, although usually you can recover at least part of it. And those companies don't work cheap.

 

remove the hard drive from the external enclosure, connect it directly to a pc, run hdd tune or something like that. hopefully only the enclosure was broken.

 

thanks a bunch guys..!!

i'll try to connect it directly to a pc first.

if that doesn't work, is there something i can do myself to fix the machinery/mechanics of the thing, i.e, open it up and beat it with a screwdriver or something..? or will it just get fubar if i start tampering with it on my own..?

 

If you can get another hard drive of the same model (possibly another busted HDD), you may be able to salvage parts of one to fix the other (a la Fallout 3). I never tried that, so I have no clue on how hard it is.

 

i would advise against opening the drive urself. HDD screws are made of metal that strips easily. If you are going to open it up urself, have sure you have the proper tool, i lost a drive over the weekend.

 

do NOT open your hard drive. never. it's sealed in vaccum, it will "destroy" the platters making it very difficult do recover the data even for a datarecovery company.
forget about trying to fix an hardware damaged hard drive. a new one it's MUCH MORE cheap.

 

What???? What kind of harddrive do you have?

99.9999% of the harddrives are not sealed in "vaccum". In fact, there's "breathe holes" on the top of the hdd. There should also be "a do not cover" sticker there as well. The air inside the hdd is very clean, but it doesn't mean it's in a "vaccum". You'll destroy your hdd if you operate the hdd in vaccume. I guarentee you that you'll get 100% data loss and total hdd failure in vaccume, or even on top of mount everst maybe.

 

thanks for all the good advice guys..,

if i was to open the thing, i wouldnt really know what to look for.. i was just thinking that the impact had knocked something out of place, and it would be easily fixed....

i also checked out the data recovery companies, but hello mr $$...

wish there was something i could do though, sucks having to "lawfully acquire" all the stuff that was on that thing all over again...

 

I would go for the buy another one and transfer your files from the unstable HDD option... It's much safer in my opinion.