External Hard Drive

[PEDRO140259]

Hi, can anyone help with the problem i'm having with my external HDD. Seems i'm having one of those months were one problem leads to the next ? It began on this whilst investigating a problem I was having with my washer dryer and it kept trippin' the Rcd. I had'nt realised that the computer was on, however I heard a strange noise coming from the living room after the third time of tripping and resetting the Rcd and upon investigating found it to be the external hard drive clicking away like crazy!!! Anyway, the result is that it's no longer listed on my computer as being there. the blue power light is on, but it no longer operates when I turn the computer on. I have a vast amount of stuff on there that I don't want to lose, that's if it is'nt lost already ? Any advice ( constructive that is ) would be much appreciated.
thank you in anticipation of your help,
regards
pedro.

 

[krisdorey]

Its not a seagate barracuda 7200.11 drive is it?

If you give the name of the external drive make and model if you dont know whats inside the casing then we can probably work it out.

 

[PEDRO140259]

Hi Krisdorey,
thanks for the reply, the unit is a medion HDDrive 2go. It's a 250 gig USB2
( USB 1.1 backward compatible ) whatever that lot means ? ha.
I got the unit about 4yrs ago from Aldis I think ? I can't see anymore info on it. Even if I have to get a new one, I'd just like to know if what's on this one can be transferred on to a new one ? I'd be gutted if I was to loose it !

 

[krisdorey]

If the drive itself hasn't died and it's just the USB interface then you can just remove the drive from it's enclosure and use a USB to ide or USB to sata cable (amazon have lots of options)

If the drive or drive inboard controller has died then it's more of an issue. You can simetime replace the controller board if you know what you're doing but it's tricky, I've done a few of the aforementioned I'll fated 7200.11 drives

I'll have a better look when I get home at options

 

[PEDRO140259]

I'm sure what you said was all correct, but it may as well have been written in Japanese ! But thanks all the same ! ha.
I'm not a computer whiz by any standard, I can manage to switch it on an surf the net for sites such as these, but that is about the pinnacle of my knowledge ! I guess if someone was to describe a procedure on how to repair the thing I may well be able to do so, but that would depend if it was explained in English or Japanese ?
Sorry if I seem ungrateful my friend, I'm not, it's just that what you said doesn't mean a thing to me !! cheers

pedro

 

[krisdorey]

Sorry

Ok in simple terms

Your external USB HD (Hard drive) is simply either

1) A laptop HD
or
2) A desktop HD

Put inside a plastic case with an interface to allow the drive to talk to the computer

Now quite often this interface dies. But the drive itself is ok.

So the simple solution is to remove the drive from the case and connect it back to the usb using a special cable (around £10 ).

But before that there are some other checks we can do but I need to look into your particular drive model which I'll do when I get home.

20 years ago, we used to hit what appeared to be totally dead hard-drives with quite some force to take the heads (think of VCR tape heads or cassette reading heads) out of their "park" mode and it would often recover to a state we could get data off them before consigning them to the bin.

 

[PEDRO140259]

Well, thanks a million my friend !!!! That sounds like encouraging news to meeeeeeeeee! I await your arrival home with bated breath !! thanks a lot for restoring my hope !!! ha.
Talk to you when ya get home then !!!!
cheers