External hard drive goosed?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 31
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From: North West
External hard drive goosed?
I have a 500gb external hard drive used to store travel photo's on.
It was dropped from a height of two feet onto a laminate wooden floor.
It turns on, but will not show up when attached to my laptop.
There is a clicking noise coming from it, and the blue power light flickers rather than showing a steady colour.
Can the hard drive be removed and put into a caddy... or is all lost?
Any helpful info gratefully received.
It was dropped from a height of two feet onto a laminate wooden floor.
It turns on, but will not show up when attached to my laptop.
There is a clicking noise coming from it, and the blue power light flickers rather than showing a steady colour.
Can the hard drive be removed and put into a caddy... or is all lost?
Any helpful info gratefully received.
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 805
Likes: 0
From: U.K.
Sounds to me as though the fall wrecked it, so you can either scrap it if the above does not work or pay for the data to be extracted by one of the companies which offer this service. As I am sure you appreciate, it won't be cheap!
P.P.
P.P.

Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 1,415
Likes: 90
Was the drive running when you dropped it? Should never move them with power on, the gyro effect can cause them to suffer physical damage.
Some stuff can benefit though - I have a Canon digital video camera that wouldn't eject its film. Someone recommended dropping it about 30cm onto a carpeted floor... after the third drop, it finally ejected the cassette and has worked fine since.
Some stuff can benefit though - I have a Canon digital video camera that wouldn't eject its film. Someone recommended dropping it about 30cm onto a carpeted floor... after the third drop, it finally ejected the cassette and has worked fine since.
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,663
Likes: 0
From: Earth
Dogwatch,
Wasn't intended to be bullying at all, merely relaying the cold hard facts.
It never ceases to amaze me the risks people take with their personal data. They either don't bother backing up, or when they do, they just entrust it all to one cheap external hard drive which doesn't really leave them in any better situation than they were before.
Normally it all ends in tears with events such as yours where the error of their ways is learnt after the event.
I just wanted to make sure you didn't just end back up in square one and simply replace your drive with another one.
That's all I was trying to say.
Wasn't intended to be bullying at all, merely relaying the cold hard facts.
It never ceases to amaze me the risks people take with their personal data. They either don't bother backing up, or when they do, they just entrust it all to one cheap external hard drive which doesn't really leave them in any better situation than they were before.
Normally it all ends in tears with events such as yours where the error of their ways is learnt after the event.
I just wanted to make sure you didn't just end back up in square one and simply replace your drive with another one.
That's all I was trying to say.





