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I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I am desperately in need of finding the solution, so here goes.....

Back story : Yesterday I dropped my phone on my laptop keyboard drop was from 1 to 2 feet high.... And immediately the blue screen appeared, it got restarted and loaded the windows normally. Then it went to the desktop homescreen, I let it run for 20 minutes, and when I came back the display was turned off which is normal... But when I tried to use it there was just black screen with mouse pointer displaying, I tried restarting the laptop from the power button but no luck. Hard drive wasn't being detected.

Now: Got a new drive installed windows and attached the previous drive externally with cable, it takes lots of time to show the partitions but doesn't show anything else like (available space, used space etc) can't even open the drives...

screenshot here drives in question are E: F: and G:

Tried mini partition wizard but it's stuck on the second tab. screenshot here

DISKPART also doesn't show any drives either.

Any suggestions?

Update : I can hear the the plates of the drive rotating silently and smoothly, just like a brand new drive

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    It would appear the hard drive was damaged by the impact. Put the drive in a different computer if you can to see.
    – anon
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 16:53
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    What is your question here? It seems obvious from your testing the impact had a negative effect on the drive and it is now defective, but I am not sure what your question is, suggestions to do what exactly?
    – acejavelin
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 16:58
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    @Sam - You would have to open the drive. If you did that without having the tool and knowledge to repair the drive outside of the proper environment, you would do more damage. If the drive is worth repairing ($) send it to a specialist. There are no guarantees in data recovery. It sounds like the drive is dead. It doesn't help now but proper backups are really important to have especially if you are on a deadline
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:06
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    Best guess - you had a head crash… the heads hit the spinning platters in the drive. this might have been prevented had you dropped the laptop on the phone, as drop sensors would have retracted the heads. What you have now is a drive that can only be recovered (even if only in part) by professional data recovery. Your urgency needs to be weighed against the value of the data. There is no other consideration. If you have to have it fast, then you should have set off driving an hour ago.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:43
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    Platter damage cannot always be heard. I lost a large drive a couple of years ago from some sort of platter damage. Not recoverable. No noise. I have since switched to SSD drives for better reliability.
    – anon
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 21:09

1 Answer 1

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What appears to be clear, the drive does not work anywhere, is that the drive was damaged by the impact.

The most likely hope now is to take the drive to a local recovery agency to see if they can recover data. They need to give you an estimate and you need to determine how much the data is worth.

I suggest not trying to recover the drive yourself before you get an assessment of the cost to recover.

There are user recover tools (Recuva, SpinRite, and others) but use of these may make later recovery more difficult.

Assuming you need to replace the drive, replace it with an SSD drive for better reliability overall.

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  • The data I need is a bit sensitive corporate data, which I need in next 2 days, and there is no recovery company in my city, by the time I get it to the nearest data recovery company, the project deadline will be already over.... I was even considering opening the drive physically, watched the video on YouTube, but keeping it as last resort.... Since it might destroy the drive, don't care about the destruction, as long as there is a possibly to get back the data
    – Sam
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:04
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    @Sam - If the drive is company property, contact your company, have somebody from the company with more knowledge. Don't open the drive without the company approval if the data is important.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:08
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    For sure do not open the drive. All will be gone if you do. There are user recovery apps (Recuva and others). Trying these may cause issues with later recovery.
    – anon
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:10
  • No its a personal laptop
    – Sam
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:14
  • later recovery won't be an issue if It only picks up the drives.... But seems like Its really is a stroke of bad luck
    – Sam
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 17:15

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