Hi all, I have this external hard drive that got almost dropped. In the process of it falling down, it hit the side of my table and began making all kinds of weird noises, as if it is stuck and it just keeps making the same sound over and over again. After this, the drive will not boot or be recognize by the computer. So probably shot, right? My question is do I have a chance in hell to recover any of the data without paying some firm to do it? I know about recovery software, but you can't recover what the computer can't recognize. So now what? Does anybody know how I can either fix or dignose my drive to see what can be recovered? Is this a waste,and I should just "chuck" the drive? Keep in mind, it is a 160gb Maxtor hard drive with a crap load of info, mostly music. Any help or advise will be appreciated.

if the drive was running when that happened then the drive is probably toast.

see if you cant remove the drive from its enclosure then see if your pc's bios can atleast recognise it then you have a chance if not then either pay alot of money or

Sounds like the garbage can. But I'm sure some of u have gotten to the point of just breaking the whole damm thing apart and seen what happens. Well, is it to the point where all 10-20k of u got no results? I don't think so, I am sure some of you have gotten some unforsen results, please share them with me. I am to the point where I am going to physically open the hard drive and just poke!! Hell, what do I have to lose. I cant make it any worse, so if the garbage bin is where it belongs, then so be it! Help me out if u can.

There's a chance that the head is stuck, and might be loosened if you tap on the drive. But don't bet on it. You could also open it up and have a look.

if you hook the drive up as slave on your IDE and the bios can recogniize it then you can probably recover the data from it using a BartPE disk.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

I doubt it'll be recognized b/c it sounds like a hardware issue as rdgrimes stated. I've had a WD hdd go bad, and the thing never stopped clicking and groaning no matter how much I tapped it or kept it in the freezer (some sites suggest that).

Thanks for all who tried helping me. I have heard about the freezing as well, but have not actually tried. I will freeze when I get home and I will see what happens tonight and I guess will let you all know. And no the computer does not recognizes it, it never gets a chance to. The minute you plug it in it begins to make that ungodly noise.

it's toast.

Hit it. Seriously. Hit it on the side, and quite hard, as it's spinning up. Sometimes this helps, although in your case it'll probably not, as it seems the heads have already scratched the hell out of the platters.

What to do with it, then? Take it apart and get the magnets out, of course!

Yes, but only if you have access to a contamination-free sealed environment. In the likely case you don't, opening any hard drive will cause dust to enter it and break it.