WD external drive light on drive isnt recognised in vista

hello all. Please can someone help me . I have WD terrabyte external HD (blk)This is my problem..i have approx 600gig of data on the HD. It was working fine however after i plugged it in again the USB bleep sounded but Vista now cannot find the drive. The drive isnt found. The blue light is on and the drive is making a whirring noise (often clickin) i have tried on another laptop but still no luck. I have also tried all the usb ports. The drive is still in warranty however PC world said it would be over £700 to retrieve data!!!! i havent dropped the drive so i have no idea why this has happened. ANY IDEAS ???? Im not very technical so step by step help would be great.

 

word of advice internal HDD where never meant to be hooked up externally, usb or firewire as they can both kill a drive way before its time.

i had a new drive that was external 500gb and it died in a matter of weeks on the firewire hookup, if you computer supports eSata use that instead.

its a good probability that you drive is dying.

Seagate has a nifty tool that allows you to reset the read write heads which often loose there place. more so when using them as an external device if you have a Seagate go pick this tool up.

other wise im at a loss.

 

ty for taking the time out to help. i will look at the seagate thing and see how i get on. i have tried another HD with the externalo attachment and it works fine so it is DEF the terrabyte HD that is the problem. It is getting power but seemingly not enough to open. The HD is making a noise. Can i get the data off this before it dies completely? PC world will give me a new HD but i will lose all my data (approx 600 gig) Any help appreciated

 

have you hooked it up internally. the external controller might not be able to handle +600GB try that.

 

There is no difference between external and internal drives. If you're hearing loud clicks your drive is probably dead. I'd try taking the drive out of the enclosure and mounting it inside your computer through IDE/SATA to make sure it's not the enclosure that's the problem. Even the most reliable hard drive needs to be backed up. If you don't have any other external/network options to backup your vital data you can use dropbox as a last resort. However I would only use it if I had nothing else as ultimately their 2GB free service is storing your private data on their machines.

 

I strongly disagree there is a big difference when your at the mercy of a external IO chip.

thats what i said above your post, though it wont work if his HDD is a 2.5 laptop HDD.

 

firstly may i apologise for the delay. I havent been around for a few days. Secondly MANY thanks to you all for taking the time to answer my query. I tried hookin the HD up to pc via SATA cable but still no joy. I have resigned myself to the fact that all my data is lost and will just get a replacement.
Valuable lesson learnt methinks

 

yes if all else fails its dead. just be careful of the external controllers there are some decent ones out there. but take it into account harddrives we never meant to be external.

 

with an adapter yes it is possible to use a 2.5 HDD. im trying to go with what i think he has to work with.

all in all it comes down to the controller in the external casing.
some work well, other do not, and when i said not meant to be external
i meant the way HDD are designed there not cut out to be an external media source we have flash drives for that.

im just telling him that external enclosure are known to kill drives faster. iv experienced this first hand, drives that lived for years in my PC did in fact die a lot faster in an external casing.

 

Well aren't you the lucky bird.

i believe his situation has been resolved. there for i see no reason to contentiously post here.

as for whether or not external hard drives do die faster is a debate that can go on for years, i have personally found they do indeed die faster than when mounted inside of a computer.