Failed External Hard Drive

Ste-

Hey,

Someone turned off my pc by holding the power button, not shutting down properly etc. when I restarted the PC the drive was not recognised. I could hear it trying to spin up then click and repeating this step over and over.

It's a 1TB Iomega drive, is it worth my while trying it in another enclosure to try rescue the data or is there another way to get the data off it ?

Thanks,

Ste-.

Odaise Gaelach

First of all try plugging the external drive into another computer, to rule out the computer being the problem (though from the sounds its making it's almost certainly the external drive that's the problem).

If the drive is in warranty then it's up to you to decide whether or not to void said warranty by opening the enclosure, removing the hard disk and attempting recovery on whatever data you had there.

If it isn't in warranty then you might as well. It can't hurt to try after all.

Turning off the PC by pressing and holding the power button should not cause damage to an external drive, especially if it has its own power supply. It could be that the power supply isn't giving enough electricity to fully start up the drive, or there's a fault in the enclosure, or the drive itself is damaged. But you won't know unless you give it a shot.

Ste-

Thanks for the suggestions, used another power adaptor from another external drive and it worked. Time to back the stuff up.