I dropped my Seagate External Hard drive on the floor and my PC wont read it

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NinjaPotatoe

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Sep 9, 2014
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I accidentally dropped my drive coz my hand accidentally tugged the cable of the drive thus it falls

the problem is when I plug my drive the PC makes the detection sound then after a few seconds the disconnection sound rings then the drive's LED blinks

I tried some techniques from google and they haven't worked so far.
I'm too afraid to open it up I might end up breaking it even more can I at least save the files I got there?

Help is much appreciated
 
Solution
christinebcw
There's a good chance that the hard-drive isn't damaged, but just the external case's power-boards or connections are damaged.

Seagate Externals have real genuine plastic clips that must be broken to open up the shell. Sorry. I use a flathead screwdriver to wedge the sides of the case open, and give it a twist. Yes. I'll hear plastic clips break. Snap-crackle-pop. Then, I can use a philips-head screw-driver to unscrew the HDD. (Later, you can buy a new external case for $20, by the way. It won't be Seagates, but it can be more colorful and do exactly the same task.)

You can purchase a USB-to-IDE/SATA 'kit' that will let you plug the USB connector into your laptop, and then plug the HDD into the other port (IDE or SATA...
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Wimukthi

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Aug 28, 2013
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External Hard Drives can get damaged easily when you drop them. Its probably damaged inside and your best bet would be to show it to a technician or data recovery person.
 
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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Yeah, that's really bad unfortunately.

Definitely open it up though, as you won't do any further damage to the drive (you could potentially do more damage to the enclosure, but that's hardly worth anything anyway).

Have you a got a desktop PC? If so, you should be able to remove the harddrive itself from the external enclosure and (temporarily) plug the drive directly into the computer. You can always borrow the power and SATA cable from the back of your CD/DVD drive if you don't have any spare cables.
Computer must be off if you're messing with internal cabling!

If you boot to windows, the drive may just appear. If not, go into Disk Management and see if you can find the drive and assign it a drive letter.
If it doesn't appear at all then it's not good news. If you really need the data you probably have to approach a recovery specialist and expect to pay big dollars.
If you can find your files, I would recommend copying them off and replacing the harddrive. The drive itself may be fine (you may have just damaged the enclosure), but it's not worth risking it for the sake of a hard drive.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on?
 
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rhysiam

Splendid
Mar 24, 2013
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Well, the desktop is the best way if you want to try it yourself. Have you got a friends with a desktop who could help you out?
Otherwise try your local computer repair store or, if you're really stuck, you'll need to approach a specialist data recovery company. Expect to pay big for the latter (though I would expect they'd be able to get your data back).
 
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christinebcw

christinebcw

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Sep 8, 2012
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There's a good chance that the hard-drive isn't damaged, but just the external case's power-boards or connections are damaged.

Seagate Externals have real genuine plastic clips that must be broken to open up the shell. Sorry. I use a flathead screwdriver to wedge the sides of the case open, and give it a twist. Yes. I'll hear plastic clips break. Snap-crackle-pop. Then, I can use a philips-head screw-driver to unscrew the HDD. (Later, you can buy a new external case for $20, by the way. It won't be Seagates, but it can be more colorful and do exactly the same task.)

You can purchase a USB-to-IDE/SATA 'kit' that will let you plug the USB connector into your laptop, and then plug the HDD into the other port (IDE or SATA, depending on age of your external drive). If the drive is good, it will power up and your notebook can view it like that.
USB-SATA3-Product.gif

Computer retailers might have this kit, and on-line places will, usually in the $15-35 range - USB 3.0 connectors will be more expensive and will have faster data-transfers, but USB 2's will be effective as well.
 
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