HELP!!! DROPPED MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

I have a IBM 20GB laptop hard drive in an external case. I just picked it up and it slipped from my hand and the drive fell, while in its case on a carpeted floor from about 4 feet. Right after that I plugged it in and it started clicking. At the end of the day by dropping it on purpose from 6 inches and shakeing it, it spins up now fine with no clicking and I can hear the heads moving and the drive seeking but my computers don't recognize it. Is the drive broken or is the external case damaged? PLZ HELP!!! I just scanned the drive before I dropped it and IT HAD NO BAD SECTORS!!!! I NEED THIS DRIVE!!!!

 

sorry man, but it sounds like your HDD is dead... I dont know any way to fix this, maybe someone else can help. I really dont think you can fix this though...

 

Any other opinions on what has happened to my drive? Thankfully it was just formatted, so It's a blank drive with no data on it.

 

Yeah the heads probably came into contact with the platters when you dropped it. I don't think it can be fixed. Is it still under warranty?

 

It was manufactured in July 2002 and its a 20GB IBM Travelstar. I don't know if its under warranty. And can the heads still make contact with the platters when the drive is off?

 

no, it wouldn't be under warranty.

when the drive is off, yes, damage can be done, but it's not as severe as when the drive is on.

 

I think after a hard drive clicks it's either dead or dying. So you might be screwed. 20GB drives are extremely cheap these days so it might not be too hard to just buy a new one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152501

Here's a nice 40GB with good reviews and a decent price. If you can afford it I think it might make a good replacement.

But might be possible to repair the drive still. Try running a long scan with Seatools for DOS. Look up how to use it.

Seatools just recently repaired one of my hard drives after an "unmountable_boot_volume" error.

 

Im gonna try it in a laptop because I think the enclosure is screwed up. I put in a 4.2 GB drive that I know spins up but has bad sectors and it just clicks. but if i do buy a new one, which I might not because this was one of my spares, I would get a 200GB SATA notebook drive for my new laptop (C2D @ 2.0GHZ, 2GB RAM, ATIx1400,120GB,DVD Burner, Bluetooth, wireless, remote, Inspiron E1505)

This is a good drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144378

 

I really doubt it's the enclosure buddy. If the hard drive was clicking then you dropped it again to fix it... it's definitely damaged.

The Scorpios can give mixed results. I recommend a Toshiba or Seagate drive if you can get one. Try to avoid Hitachi and IBM though. Their drives have a pretty high failure rate.

 

How are the Toshiba Notebook 120GB SATA hard drives? The one in my E1505 Failed with only 1 bad sector (I replaced it under warranty)

 

I think they are actually pretty great. My sister has one in her laptop and it has worked fast and problem-free for about a year now

 

I got my Toshiba one that failed replaced with a Fujistu. Are those good?

 

I'm not too sure about Fujitsu. I've never seen them used or had experience with their other products.

 

another thing about the drive I dropped. If i put a known Bad Hitachi 4.2 GB hard drive in the enclosure it clicks and the LED flashes red and green at the same time, if I put in the IBM, the one I dropped, it just clicks but the LED stays green as though the drive is working? any suggestions? And also, the Fujistu drive I have runs very cool, about 45 C in my laptop

 

Some just don't report errors without diagnostic programs.

I remember a Western Digital Caviar I had for a long time that worked perfectly but showed up with about 30 errors in a test.

 

Thanks for the replies, I am gonna try it out in a laptop and if it doesnt work, I might look into an other one. Instead of a HD, I might get a desktop HD (160GB) and 2GB RAM (OCZ @ 800MHz) to upgrade my XPS. I'll post back with the hard drive results

 

Sounds like a plan dude!

 

and I had a WD drive that from new refused to create a master table for an operating system. Works flawlessly as a slave drive, but put an OS on it and it throws a wobbly and corrupts the files!

 

lol.

 

Had that with my first Seagate Barracuda 160GB... it ran fine for a month and then the boot.ini was corrupted and I couldn't get it to support an OS.

It works well as an external storage unit though.