external hard drive stopped working

[Bryan2]

I manage a geeksquad

heres the deal if it doesnt show up in disk managment like kale said then its one of two things

The drive itself is shot which means you HAVE to send it to a specialist or two just the enclosure is bad in which case you can disasemble it and remove the internal drive and hook it up to a machine with another enclosure (usually around 50 bucks buy it at bestbuy and then return it the next day).

If the drive still spins and isnt in horrible shape then there is special software out there than may be able to retreive it for you.


Torrent a program called Easy recovery, Its made by one of the biggest data recovery specialists in the U.S.

If you do go the freezer route make sure you put it in 2 ziplock bags and push all the air out as possible. you shouldnt need more than 10 minutes anything more and you risk even further damage this method again only works if the drive itself is detected by a computer

your looking at 500-1500 bucks by the way if you have tried what I mentioned and it still doesnt work..... So is it even worth it at that point?

[Kale]

I manage a geeksquad

heres the deal if it doesnt show up in disk managment like kale said then its one of two things

The drive itself is shot which means you HAVE to send it to a specialist or two just the enclosure is bad in which case you can disasemble it and remove the internal drive and hook it up to a machine with another enclosure (usually around 50 bucks buy it at bestbuy and then return it the next day).

If the drive still spins and isnt in horrible shape then there is special software out there than may be able to retreive it for you.


Torrent a program called Easy recovery, Its made by one of the biggest data recovery specialists in the U.S.

If you do go the freezer route make sure you put it in 2 ziplock bags and push all the air out as possible. you shouldnt need more than 10 minutes anything more and you risk even further damage this method again only works if the drive itself is detected by a computer

your looking at 500-1500 bucks by the way if you have tried what I mentioned and it still doesnt work..... So is it even worth it at that point?

Yes all good ideas. I used a thing called File Scavenger to recover one of my 750 gig external drives and it was brilliant and it was free !! But you have to be able to see the drive in Disk Manager to be able to sue it