Damaged external HDD - Solutions?

[slider]

I literally just dropped my external HDD from a height of about 2/3 of a meter. Dead. It won't register as an external peripheral (it connects via USB).

Any ideas on what to do in this sort of situation? I can hear clicking which I guess is the head after it's been dislodged*. Is it worth trying to take a screw-driver to it? I'd been so good - was just attempting to back up some work stuff to it. I sort of have access to forensic tools (operated by someone else!) through work which I could use as a last resort. But is any of the material on there likely to be recoverable by me sat at home?

Not that it matters but it's a Seagate something or other.

*Total guessing...

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Send it to Ontrack or similar, or never get your data back.

 

[BlackAngus]

I literally just dropped my external HDD from a height of about 2/3 of a meter. Dead. It won't register as an external peripheral (it connects via USB).

Any ideas on what to do in this sort of situation? I can hear clicking which I guess is the head after it's been dislodged*. Is it worth trying to take a screw-driver to it? I'd been so good - was just attempting to back up some work stuff to it. I sort of have access to forensic tools (operated by someone else!) through work which I could use as a last resort. But is any of the material on there likely to be recoverable by me sat at home?

Not that it matters but it's a Seagate something or other.

*Total guessing...

If you MUST have the data ONTRACK can help, but is very very expensive.

But at any rate the drive is toast. Drives are sealed for a reason and will most likely quickly fail after being opened.

That being said we ran a drive open at work for over a day before it died. =)

You may want to try knocking the drive on your desk. I have had that work to get a couple of drives working long enough to get the data off of them. (Windows could see the drive but not read from it, after a bit of knocking windows could read from it for a while before it quit.)

 

[Davros]

thers also the old wives tale about putting it in a plastic bag in the fridge

 

[stevem]

Heh, the freezer/knocking has worked for me long enough to get data off. I recovered a 2.5" external USB drive by removing from enclosure & connecting via a 2.5"-3.5" IDE adapter. Should be easy if SATA. Use the manufacturer's diagnostic utils. Clicking head seeks = bad, though.

 

[slider]

Thanks guys. It was as I feared! I'll just a few tricks and post how I get on...

 

[Sxotty]

Someone got a HDD that was identical and swapped the platters out at home in a ziploc baggy and it worked perfectly.

http://www.freewebs.com/bgotchall/index.htm

 

[stevem]

Heh, cool.

Then I swapped in the old PCB, with gasket. Then, VICTORY.

Pretty obvious you need the PCB from the same drive as the platters, else incorrect defect map, etc.