External Hard Drive Crashed

DavidMartin

DavidMartin

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David Martin
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Hi I'm not very techy when it comes to computers. My Seagate external hard drive has decided not to work any more. It doesn't come up on the pc anymore and just bleeps. The stuff that is on it isn't to important if I lose it but is there any hope of salvaging it or shall I just file it in the bin.
I don't want to pay a fortune to have it looked at and data rescued.

Any ideas ?
 
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Would be worth trying the drive in a new case if possible, could just be the interface and not the drive.
 
is it making any sounds other than beeps? If the hard drive is spinning up, you could take it out of the external case and plug it direct into your pc....
 
gramps said:
Would be worth trying the drive in a new case if possible, could just be the interface and not the drive.
Click to expand...

I have heard about IDE/SATA to USB leads was thinking of giving that a go or am I barking up the wrong tree.
 
stokes said:
is it making any sounds other than beeps? If the hard drive is spinning up, you could take it out of the external case and plug it direct into your pc....
Click to expand...

To be honest I can't here anything. There is a green light which used to be on permanently when it worked ok but now flashes
 
maxtor internal hard drives have a 3 yr warrantee , seagate external hard drives
may have the same , worth checking out.

realspeed
 
Sounds like a stuck head / spindle on the drive, I know this may sound silly, but try holding the drive 2 inches from the surface of your desk and drop it onto the desk.

It sometimes frees the stuck actuator/spindle, so you can plug it in and get data off of it

:)
 
Rob 80386 said:
Sounds like a stuck head / spindle on the drive, I know this may sound silly, but try holding the drive 2 inches from the surface of your desk and drop it onto the desk.

It sometimes frees the stuck actuator/spindle, so you can plug it in and get data off of it

:)
Click to expand...

I have to admit it has had a few frustration wacks :-)
 
definately the first thing to try it to strip the drive out of the case and pop it in a new case (icy box) or into a desktop pc if you have one available.

external drives usually the weakest link is the enclosure.
 
Do try checking the data cable ( USB) . Had a drive appear to be faulty recently,was about to strip it down but just changed the USB cable. All working fine now,
 
I've had two external hard drives fail on me, the drives were removed from the enclosures and fitted inside my case and they're still going strong several years later.
Also had one to test for a mate as the PC just wouldn't recognise it...new cable later and it was sorted. ;)
 
A cheap place to start would be a different USB cable, we had an external drive stop working here, it was the USB cable
 
Thanks for the replies, I have tried other usb leads and it still does the same. I'll get another case and hopefully it will be the interface thingy.

Thanks again. :thumbs:
 
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