Question I have an easystore WD portable storage drive. I dropped it and stopped working.
- Thread starter antlora
- Start date
I think there's a good chance the drive was physically damaged when it landed and if so.....I don't think there is much you are going to be able to do. I think that repairing hard drives damaged in this way is not something that someone like you or I...without professional tools and experience...can do in any practical sense.
Dark Lord of Tech
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If you can live without ever being able to get the data off of it, you lose nothing by opening it up and seeing what the issue is. Just keep in mind that opening it usually foregoes sending it out for recovery.
With that being said, my grandson knocked my 3tb off my desk a few months back while I was writing to it. Dead drive afterwards. So I explained how they work and proceeded to open it. As predicted, the head had welded itself to the platter in that brief moment of contact.
Unstuck the head and the drive could surprisingly read and write again. Usually the head is damaged beyond usability. Not that I would ever trust it and did not need anything from it since my data is backed up several times. But its a good lesson to learn while young IMO. I still have it on my desk, one day I'll scavenge the magnets and sell the control board. LoL
If your drive was 'off' when you dropped it, you might just find that the head(s) are stuck in the parked zone; otherwise expect similar results as mine.
With that being said, my grandson knocked my 3tb off my desk a few months back while I was writing to it. Dead drive afterwards. So I explained how they work and proceeded to open it. As predicted, the head had welded itself to the platter in that brief moment of contact.
Unstuck the head and the drive could surprisingly read and write again. Usually the head is damaged beyond usability. Not that I would ever trust it and did not need anything from it since my data is backed up several times. But its a good lesson to learn while young IMO. I still have it on my desk, one day I'll scavenge the magnets and sell the control board. LoL
If your drive was 'off' when you dropped it, you might just find that the head(s) are stuck in the parked zone; otherwise expect similar results as mine.
captaincharisma
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if its a modern external drive this is not possible. newer external drives are not SATA HDD/SSD in a USB enclosure
ElectrO_90
Splendid
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You won't know what's in it, until he opens it up.
What other connections do they use if they are not Sata anymore?
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Often, the SATA-USB bridge is on the drives PCB. It needs that enclosure to operate...there are no normal SATA connections on the actual drive.
Only way to tell with this one is to open it up. Or see someone elses drive that they opened up.
captaincharisma
Glorious
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the connector you see on the back of the external drive is integrated on it. the enclosure is nothing but a shell.
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