External HDD broken

Paleface

I have an Iomega External USB HDD that just suddenly stopped working.

When I connect it to my laptop it starts making the usual noises as if its booting up but then then just stops and then it never actually shows up as a drive in Windows.

I'm thinking the problem is mechanical as if the drive were corrupt Windows would tell me so or am I wrong?

I'm resigned to just getting a new one but I would like to know if its possible to retrieve all the data off the broken one at all?

bhickey

Have you tried it a different USB port or on another machine? Sometimes external drives just don't get enough power through the USB port.

macgrub

Did you let the HD drop or fall? Since it is mechanical, a fall may have damaged it.
As above, try another power source. Or, try another USB port, usually on the back of your computer, where it's connected directly to the motherboard.

If it is banjaxed, there are people online who can salvage information from those drives. Not sure where, but it is possible.

Paleface

bhickey wrote: »

Have you tried it a different USB port or on another machine? Sometimes external drives just don't get enough power through the USB port.

Yes I tried to connect it to another laptop and my PS3 and both times the results were the same.

I'm thinking I might need to remove the drive from the casing and try reading it another way but I'm not sure how to go about doing this.

Paleface

macgrub wrote: »

Did you let the HD drop or fall? Since it is mechanical, a fall may have damaged it.
As above, try another power source. Or, try another USB port, usually on the back of your computer, where it's connected directly to the motherboard.

If it is banjaxed, there are people online who can salvage information from those drives. Not sure where, but it is possible.

I'm thinking it must have gotten a bang at some stage alright. I'm not the only person that uses it so I can't know for sure.

I have looked for data recovery services online but they are not cheap! I was hoping that if it was something small mechanically I could just get around that myself by reading the drive in another way.

bhickey

Okay well inside the case is just a standard disk drive. If you can carefullly dismantle the shell then you may be able to plug the drive in somewhere. Alternatively you can try a USB caddy (or interface cables) to attach the bare drive to a PC.

If the drive itself has been mechanically damaged though then you've probably seen the last of any data that was on it.

Paleface

bhickey wrote: »

Okay well inside the case is just a standard disk drive. If you can carefullly dismantle the shell then you may be able to plug the drive in somewhere. Alternatively you can try a USB caddy (or interface cables) to attach the bare drive to a PC.

If the drive itself has been mechanically damaged though then you've probably seen the last of any data that was on it.

Thanks for the info.

I spoke to a friend about this and he said that I need to determine if its a SATA or IDE drive first and then buy the appropriate USB caddy.

I think I'll try open it up tonight then to at least determine this.

Paleface

Sorry I should have asked how do I know from looking at the drive if its SATA or IDE?

bhickey

SATA has 2 small L-shaped edge connectors.

Paleface

bhickey wrote: »

SATA has 2 small L-shaped edge connectors.

Any chance you can post an image of what you mean?

bhickey

Have a look at the connector pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA and you'll get the general idea.