Broken External HDD?

[Brand86]

Basically, I have an 80gb external HDD on my laptop which is about 3 years old now which I use to store music and photo files. It hasn't skipped a beat in all the time I owned it until I came home from uni and not really used my laptop or the HDD - but when I have since tried using it, the HDD only intermitently works, e.g. the power light comes on but it doesn't "launch" or whatever (the disk isn't displayed on My Computer like it should do).

After a few attempts it has finally loaded except today no luck. I have basically been just trying trial and error unconnecting and connecting power and USB cables with it until it works, but now doesn't seem to be working at all :dapprove: I can hear a faint whirring noise like it is trying but failing to turn the disk inside, which I assume isn't a good noise!?!?

So:

- is the HDD fucked?
- if so, any way to retrieve the data from it?
- if not, any ideas why it has suddenly stopped working?

Also worth mentioning I have tried another external HDD and it worked fine first time...

Cheers for any help!
Tom

 

[kneebs76]

You knew it was on it's last legs and you didn't get the data off it? D'oh!

Some people have managed to get disks working by putting it in the freezer (in a sealed bag!), although the disk doesn't work for very long at all I'm afraid (anything from a few seconds to a few minutes, maybe enough to retreive anything you're desparate for though)

Other than that, I'd say it's pretty much knackered mate.

 

[realnumber 1]

I had what sounds like the same problem with a Toshiba USB drive and it turned out to be its power supply (very strange I thought ).
Have you tried it on another PC or changed the USB cable?
If its the drive then you might be best taking the disk out and putting it straight in a PC and using easy recovery or something.

 

[Brand86]

No I did copy off most the stuff and transfer it to my other HDD don't worry, not that much of a tard, but couldn't fit quite everything on there, and to be honest would much rather this one just worked!

I will try changing the cables then and see if that has any effect...just so annoying really, hate it when things break!

Thanks muchly anyway!

 

[DeeKay86]

My dog pulled my Western Digital External 500GB off the table...

I just about cried...I lost everything...10 years worth of downloading....

*sighs*

 

[Darren S]

Brand, have you tried taking the drive out of the enclosure and connecting it directly to a desktop mobo with a converter? It does sound knackered, but hopefully you'll get everything off it that you need.

When the MD here had the hard drive in his IMac eat itself, we went to Kroll Ontrack to recover it. They managed to get all the pictures off it of his kids growing up/holidays etc. Cost over a grand to do it, but the pictures were obviously quite priceless.

I think he tends to backup stuff at home on a lot of DVDs these days.

D.