Dropped Seagate Goflex

Hello All,

An external HD, with all of our family home vids, got knocked off the desk onto the floor. When I plug it into the USB, it does recognize the drive, but sometimes it shows the capacity info and sometimes it doesn't. When it does show the capacity info, I can get into the drive and see the files. They even show up as thumbnails, but when I click in the thumbnail the vid starts to load but it never plays. So, it can see the files, it just can't play them. There is no clicking sound coming from the drive. My bro-in-law thinks that the controller board is either bad or disconnected.

I did run CHKDSK on E:, but it didn't seem to do anything. It never ended, and I figured it couldn't recognize the disk, so I aborted it. Do I need to let it run no matter how long it takes?

I was thinking about a recovery program, but figured it wouldn't do any good, since it seems to me that there is a physical issue...should I still try one?

If there is a physical issue, I have replaced some components in my CPU (vid card, power supply, RAM) but I have never opened any type of hard drive. Is this something that I could tackle, or is it best to leave it to the professionals and pay through the nose?

Thanks for your time!

 

Leave it to the professionals if the contents is irreplaceable.
They open devices in a "clean room". That isn't something you would be able to do and opening the case might cause further damage to the unit.

 

Also, that sharp blow from the drop to the floor may well have cracked the drive's pc board so, leave file recovery to the pros and get yourself another drive.

 

if you can see the files, make an image of the drive with dd-rescue or OSFClone,
then mount that image with OSFMount to recover files.
Or see this guy .. http://www.myharddrivedied.com/

 

Thanks for the replies. I figured it wasn't anything I could do, just hoping. I did email the site you provided Foogoo...thanks!