WD external drive won't work anymore... HELP!!!

I have a WD My Book 320 Gb external drive that I've used with no problems for about 2 years now. Last night it fell off my desk.

The first thing that struck me as odd was that the power light wouldn't turn off, but I didn't think much of it and just unplugged it and went to bed.

I just connected it to my laptop a few minutes ago and nothing happened. It didn't make the "USB sound" when I hooked it up, and the drive didn't appear under my computer. When I plug it in and connect it, it makes a normal sound like it's going to start up, and then it makes a funny noise like it's trying to spin but can't.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to take the thing apart without damaging it, there's no screws or sliding parts of anything on the enclosure. I've heard in the past about people putting drives in the freezer to get them to work again, is that legit???

I really need to get this drive working again, even if only for a long enough time to copy everything onto another drive. Taking it somewhere for repair is not an option because I have a ton of not-so-legally downloaded music and movies and I'm not going to take any chances with that. What can I do to get my drive working again? Someone please help me, I have SO much stuff on this drive that I don't want to lose

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me!

 

Those external hard drives are not meant to be taken apart as they do not have any serviceable parts. If you take it apart, you will probably just end up damaging it more and wasting your time.

From what you have told me, your hard drive is a loss. When it was dropped, the read/write head actuators probably got damaged causing it not to work. You can try plugging the hard drive into another computer to see if it will work there. However, if I plugged in a customer's hard drive and it made that sound and didn't get detected, I would tell them it is lost.

Data recovery is not impossible. Most computer repair stores depend on the hard drive to physically work to get the information off them, so they won't be able to do anything for you. There are some companies that specialize in recovering data off of hard drives that do not physically work. The process typically cost above 1000$.

Sorry I could not give you better news. Perhaps you will learn from this and be sure to periodically back up your data. Also, get your stuff legit. It will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside

 

I thought I should add something about the freezing hard drives if you are still reading this.

In some cases, freezing a hard drive will get it to work for a little while. However, this usually only works when the hard drive normall works for a few seconds, and then quits. The logic is that by chilling the chips on the controller, it prolong the amount of time before the chips overheat.

All of this to tell you that your hard drive doesn't fit the symptoms of that solution. Besides, it is usually used on just a hard drive. I don't know how it would affect external hard drives.

 

Does it sound similar to these hard drive sounds?
I guess bearings got stuck or something. Mechanical issues are the most difficult and expensive

 

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I must be realllllly lucky. I read how hopeless it sounded, and I got kinda mad and started smacking my harddrive and shaking it (and screaming at it, I tend to do that to inanimate objects that make me mad lol) and all of a sudden the noise changed and sounded more normal. So just to see, I plugged it up... and it works!!! Nothing was lost either, all of my data is still there!!! I guess maybe something got knocked loose when it fell, and my shaking it knocked it back into place? Crazy.

I'm probably going to buy another drive when I get the money, and back everything up on there and on DVD's so that I have at least 3 copies of anything important. But in the meantime, it's working, and I consider myself really lucky. Now if only I could get my car to start lol.....

 

LOL!

This often works for me as well--knocking something around in a similar fashion to the original fall. But I only use it on something I consider a total loss--you can ask my on again/off again Cd Walkman.

 

I guess I don't need to tell you to make a backup of all the information on that hard drive.