Broken External Hard Drive

[wurzel]

...Won't spin up. Is there anything that can be done to recover the data?

[doodab]

Is it USB powered or separate PSU?

You could try extracting the actual drive and putting it in another caddy or PATA/SATA to USB adapter.

You could always send it off to those data recovery folks, they'll almost certainly be able to help, but I don't think it's cheap.

You are probably better off getting a new drive and restoring from backup.

[Fred Bloggs]

+1 I bought a ESATA/USB caddy for about £15 and it works fine when you put the disk into it. Take the disk out of its own box and see if it is a SATA or an older EIDE drive. Then buy the right caddy.

[wurzel]

Nice one. I'll give that a whirl

[VectraMan]

Yes they work really well. Great use for an old drive.

Of course if you have a desktop, and you're removing the drive from the USB enclosure, you could always just connect it up to the desktop.

[OwlHoot]

...Won't spin up. Is there anything that can be done to recover the data?

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

[scooterscot]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

It's true. I've had success in the past with this method, although it was a 2.5" drive

[Sysman]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

As a step before that, switching everything off overnight can be enough. This has saved me several times.

[Platypus]

It's true. I've had success in the past with this method, although it was a 2.5" drive

I tried it, didn't work for me :-(

But I've heard many success stories.

[wurzel]

Don't laugh, but you can sometimes resurrect a failing disk drive, at least for a while, by putting it in the fridge or even the freezer.

Even if it only works for a few minutes when you take it out, that'll be enough to grab important files. especially if you can repeat the trick a few times.

Also, a physical partition copy, track by track, rather then a logical file system copy might cause less back and forth head movement and keep it going longer (if the problem is mechanical).

Tried that but didn't work.

Not sure if a new caddy will work either - every time I connect the drive to the USB port I hear a bit of thrashing for a few seconds then it stops