Dead External Drive

So I have a Seagate External drive (2T) that was connected via USB during a T-storm. The whole system was plugged into an APC UPS. The local power flickered and went out (The UPS kept the system going) and I shut the system down for the night.
When I booted the system up the next morning, the seagate was dead.
I have made a number of tries to access the drive. None have been successful.
There are a number of files on the drive I would like to recover, but not important enough to pay a commercial data recovery firm for (i.e. 5 years of pictures.).
I have thought about cutting the case open, removing the drive and connecting it directly to my lab machine to see if I can read it that way. Short of that, I'm out of inspiration.
I'd appreciate any thoughts.

 

over the years, i have had a number of external drives "die" on me. removing the drive and connecting it, either directly to the computer, or using a different external method, has "usually" been successful. which just tells me that the little circuit board in the external case stopped working for some reason. don't know what else to say but good luck with it.

 

Have you tried the drive on a different pair of USB ports? On a different computer? Does the Seagate even spin up?

At this point, you don't know if the drive itself has failed, or the USB interface. So removing the drive and attaching it directly may be you best option.

BTW, hindsight is 20/20 but this illustrates the need for multiple backup copies of any file we don't want to lose. And preferably, that's with at least one copy kept "off-site" - just in case our homes are destroyed by fire, flood, hurricane/tornado, or our systems are stolen by a burglar.