How to fix lost connection to external harddrive?

Question

I’ve an approximately 4-5-year-old, Maxtor 3200 external hard drive which had worked perfectly until recently. Suddenly, Windows 7 couldn’t see the drive. I also have a WD Passport external hard drive that runs with no problem on my system.

I tried to connect my Maxtor to two other laptops, but encountered the same problem.

The strange thing is, when I connect it to my Windows 7 laptop, I can see in the “Safely remove hardware” button in my taskbar that the Maxtor 3200 is present but it is not shown in My Computer or in Managing Devices in the administration tool.

I don't hear any sound when turning the power on and no spinning sound either when connecting it to my laptop, like I used to before it stopped working.

I have a lot of data that I would really like to back up from the drive but now I fear that it is gone. I just can’t understand why it all of a sudden just gave up and stopped working.

I tried a tool from Seagate called “SeaTools” but that couldn't find the hard drive either.

The green light in front is on, so I’m sure it gets power. Is there any way to access the data of the hard drive, and how come I can see it in the “Safely remove hardware” application but not anywhere else?

If all else fails, does anyone have experience in disassembly the cover and connect the hard drive to some sort of converter interface to the USB so I can retrieve my data?

Answer 1

From your description, I believe your Hard Drive is fried. I think you will have to take it to a data recovery company to get the data.

Answer 2

Sounds like there is no power to spin the platters, if you can’t do that then the only option is to arrange recovery of the data off the discs itself, you can swap about the hardware into other drives and see if it’ll power.

http://lifehacker.com/5982339/diy-data-recovery-tricks-for-when-your-hard-drive-goes-belly-up is a good example.