the light is on but the pc is does not seem to think it is there!

tried different USB ports, and turning off and on again but nadda.

what should I do and any ideas/costs of how/where to recover the data?

thanks.

What kind of external hard drive? It could be the disk or the chassis/gubbins it is connected to!

It may not be the drive itself. Before you write it off open the case and remove the drive. Chances are it's an IDE drive, so you can just open up your pc and plug it into the internal drive cabling (unplug the CD drive if you've not got a spare plug on the cable).

It may just spin up fine – if not then at least you've got an empty case ready to slap a new drive into.

If it does seem to spin up and windows can see the drive but can't recognise the partition it may well have been formatted with a linux partition (this is more likely with a NAS), in which case buy a new enclosure and chuck the drive in.

I've currently got a 250gig drive sat on my desk that stopped working. Turns out that it's the power supply that's gone and the drive is fine – luckily my work PC boots both XP or Linux so I could check the data was fine.

its a Western Digital. I can hear the hard drive whirring away inside.

what's the value of the data?

there's companies that will recover for you (it'll cost though) and if you think you'll go down that route I wouldn;t start dismantling stuff and poking about.

Of course, this wasn't your only backup ??

( assuming that you don't have a spare *known working* hard drive kicking around in a draw somewhere ) Go and buy a new USB->SATA enclosure and swap the drive into it as a first step before paying for someone to professionally recover your data – they are about 20 quid a go and swapping the drive over is very easy.

Good luck. Though TBH you wouldn't need good luck if you kept a backup of your data*

* This won't help you now, but it might make others take the backing up of their data more seriously.

Professional data recovery from a dead drive is horrifically, terrifyingly expensive. If it turns out to be a problem with the disk itself, you're almost always better off chalking it off as a learning experience and making proper backups in future.

That said, it might not be the disk itself. There's a number of reasons why it might have failed, so you need to narrow that down. Try a different USB cable, different PC, different power supply if possible.

It could be the controller in the caddy rather than the disk itself so if you're practical it might be possible to disassemble the caddy to remove and reseat the drive inside it, or hook the drive up to a PC bypassing the caddy. Find a local geek, we accept payment in most major forms of alcohol.

If it's in warranty then you should be able to get it repaired, however your data will be the last thing they care about and there's every chance that it'll come back wiped clean.

its a Western Digital. I can hear the hard drive whirring away inside.

If you can hear a repetitive noise like the heads trying to read data then it may be fecked, but it sounds like ti could well be the usb hardware in the enclosure that's the problem.
Pull the drive out and put it in the PC.

try a different pc first!

there's companies that will recover for you (it'll cost though) and if you think you'll go down that route I wouldn;t start dismantling stuff and poking about.

Nah, taking the drive out will take about 30 seconds and you can't do any damage unless you happen to drop it in a bath/toilet/river. Go for it, you have nothing to lose.

*/ mode british on/*
Have you try turning it off and on again
*/ mode british off/*

But as people have said before. Try anothe PC, usb cable, try to pug it inside the tower if possible etc etc.

I would try Tim's suggestion very first, you might have an issue with your USB drivers.

After that, cranberry has a good suggestion, swap it into a new enclosure if you're a bit worried about opening up the PC to plug it directly into an IDE port.

As mentioned, data recovery is terribly expensive, especially if the drive hardware itself is screwed and they have to remove the platters themselves.

wohoo its back. It was a USB issue I believe.
Just had someone talk me through doing all kinds of hardware reboots or whatever and changed the cable and bingo f'ing bongo its back

It was important data of which most of it was backed up elsewhere, but I was just in the process of doing the rest when it all went down 😯

Feels pretty sickening. Getting a better system set up as soon as these last files finish copying across.

Thanks so much for your advice.

yay….. good news 🙂

Excellent.

Clicky Here:

Data recovery for £25 as a last resort

But try it in a PC first.

Oops should read the rest of thread..

Also on EBuyer is a 500Gb NAS box capable of mirroring (you'll have to buy an extra 500Gb drive for around £30) for £69.99 – thats about as secure as you'll need for home storage.. or look into one of the online companies like Carbonite

i've got a WD passport drive and it only shows up if use a really short USB cable! with a normal cable you can hear it clicking but never spins up properly

Try it connected to a powered hub, often makes a difference.

Stuartm555 – a 2.5" drive with no external power supply? If so that's quite common as not all USB sockets on computers deliver the maximum amount of power that the design will allow and the drives actually need.

If you have a 2nd USB socket spare then get a y-cable like this.