I bought a new external hdd a few weeks back, and had no problems, until a few days ago. I plugged it into a friends mac, and was able to transfer files back and forth fine, but then the hdd was dropped and it pulled the plug out of the computer. Since then when it is plugged in it won't register that it's attached, but it still turns on with the lights and the whirring etc. I have only been able to try it on macs so far, but am I screwed? I would normally take it in to get looked at, but am traveling currently so not able to. Is there anything I can try to get it working?

One thing you can hope for is that there is something broken in the caddy enclosure itself, and that the mechanics of the hard drive inside have been protected. Is there another enclosure you could transfer the drive to, to check this?

IIRC its a laptop HDD in one of those small moulded enclosures - is that right? so swapping it will be a bit tricky. I'd prolly be inclined to think thermite is right though and its prolly just something in the caddy but an easy fix will prolly be hard to come by :(

take the drive and and put it in a new enclosure

probably sata if its newish

http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=93&bid=2&sid=32330
http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=93&bid=2&sid=34088

or http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&bid=2&id2=93&sid=33836
(ide)

Before you buy a new enclosure, test that the drive works. Since you dropped it while it was still on, my money is you've boned the HDD. The caddy doesn't offer any buffer to dropping it and it takes bugger all force to kill one that's running.

could also be a screwed file system. chuck it on a windows pc and see if you see anything in disk management, and if so, run getdataback for ntfs to see if anything is recoverable.

have you tried another cable to make sure it didn't just break the cable inside? Also how the hell do you just drop a hard drive while it's connected to your computer? were you "wrestling" near the PC or something? Were you just holding it while it transferred or what?

I wasn't transferring anything at the time, just still plugged it. A friend picked up the laptop without realizing my hdd was still attached, and the weight of the drive pulled the cord out, falling to the floor :p
Also thanks for the tips.

as Mr H said, you might be lucky enough to just have a screwed filesystem.

If you're able to see the drive in computer management you can attempt a data recovery. if not, pull the old drive out of the caddy, go buy a cheapy laptop hd from a computer store and screw that into the shell

and don't let noobs near your stuff next time

I wasn't transferring anything at the time, just still plugged it. A friend picked up the laptop without realizing my hdd was still attached, and the weight of the drive pulled the cord out, falling to the floor :p
Also thanks for the tips.

Always seems to be the friend. Formatting hard drives, breaking them, giving you virii, you guys all need to get better friends :)

Had a friend give me a drive and i was thinking about getting one of those external hard-drive/USB caddy things.
He hasnt used the Hard Drive for 1 year.
Will it still work ?

Do the caddys support all drives ? or do you i have to get a SATA one ?
For instance .. if i get a SATA caddy will i still be able to use it for non-sata ?

Do the caddys support all drives ?

no dude


get an ide caddy for a standard 5.25 ide HDD

get a sata caddy for a standard 5,25 sata HDD

HDD caddies are THE s***. get an IDE or SATA to match what you have.


don't pay more that $20 for any kind of caddy

Since we're all asking questions I just thought of one. I've got a seagate and a WD external hard drive (usb2.0) and the enclosure gets pretty warm. Are these external ones designed only to be plugged in when needed, files transferred and then unplugged or are they ok to be left plugged in and turned on for hours? At the moment I usually just turn them on when needed but since one of them is the external storage for my PVR there's a chance it might be on for a few hours at a time.

http://www.pcgogo.com.au/images/uploads/CABEUSBDS.jpg

was looking at getting one of these ..
http://www.pcgogo.com.au/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=8434