Help! my external hard drive dropped on the floor.

Serialkilla · 07-24-2006, 02:25 AM

Yesterday night, I was watching a movie over my External Personal Storage 3200 Maxtor device. While I was watching an accident occured, and someone tripped over the power cable pulling the drive from a 40 Centimeter high table, unto a wooden floor with a carpet. I heard the thing fall on the floor. I thought it was ok, and I continued the movie for about 10 seconds and it stopped moving. So I checked the HD. Turned it of and then on, and it started making this siren like noise. I can hear the windows plug and play sound when i plug it in, but i can't see the HD appear in the My Computer Section. I have spent 2 months of downloading to this device, so I will use it during my studying at college. This is a disaster for me. I checked the maxtor website, and I entered my serial number, the warranty is alive. I am in Switzerland right now, and I bought the HD from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I am hoping to use the warranty here if possible, I have no other resort but to pay if I have to. Is there a chance that my HD is still alive or possible to be fixed? and I certainly wish for the data not to be lost. 2 Months of downloading is alot for me. I haven't tried to fiddle with it much to prevent any possible further damage. All it does it this siren noise, and i can hear mechanisms noises inside.

Thanks for reading.

crazijoe · 07-24-2006, 06:40 AM

Well you have a delema here. You could pull the drive out of the housing and slave it in a computer. If the drive is good, this will allow you to copy the data onto another computer and/ or tell if the drive is good. However if you remove the drive from the case this could void the warranty.
If you send the drive off for warranty chances of getting the same drive back is very slim. This is because normally it is cheaper to send you a replacement than it is to repair your old one. In this case your data would be lost.

**Terrister** · 07-24-2006, 07:51 AM

Also on some wrranties,most drives are fit with a G sensor that can detect if the drive has been dropped. In that case you will have to replace the drive yourself.

07-24-2006, 02:25 AM	#1 (permalink)
Serialkilla Registered User Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 13 OS: XP	Help! my external hard drive dropped on the floor. Yesterday night, I was watching a movie over my External Personal Storage 3200 Maxtor device. While I was watching an accident occured, and someone tripped over the power cable pulling the drive from a 40 Centimeter high table, unto a wooden floor with a carpet. I heard the thing fall on the floor. I thought it was ok, and I continued the movie for about 10 seconds and it stopped moving. So I checked the HD. Turned it of and then on, and it started making this siren like noise. I can hear the windows plug and play sound when i plug it in, but i can't see the HD appear in the My Computer Section. I have spent 2 months of downloading to this device, so I will use it during my studying at college. This is a disaster for me. I checked the maxtor website, and I entered my serial number, the warranty is alive. I am in Switzerland right now, and I bought the HD from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I am hoping to use the warranty here if possible, I have no other resort but to pay if I have to. Is there a chance that my HD is still alive or possible to be fixed? and I certainly wish for the data not to be lost. 2 Months of downloading is alot for me. I haven't tried to fiddle with it much to prevent any possible further damage. All it does it this siren noise, and i can hear mechanisms noises inside. Thanks for reading.

07-24-2006, 06:40 AM	#2 (permalink)
crazijoe Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Omaha, The Center of the Universe Posts: 7,632 OS: WinXP, Win2K3 My System	Well you have a delema here. You could pull the drive out of the housing and slave it in a computer. If the drive is good, this will allow you to copy the data onto another computer and/ or tell if the drive is good. However if you remove the drive from the case this could void the warranty. If you send the drive off for warranty chances of getting the same drive back is very slim. This is because normally it is cheaper to send you a replacement than it is to repair your old one. In this case your data would be lost. __________________ Microsoft MCSA + Messaging, MVP, A+, Network+ http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3...other/Help.jpg Do you want a real Republican? HDD diagnostic tools / HDD data recovery software

07-24-2006, 07:51 AM	#3 (permalink)
Terrister Moderator Hardware Forum Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: West Georgia, USA Posts: 7,098 OS: Xp	Also on some wrranties,most drives are fit with a G sensor that can detect if the drive has been dropped. In that case you will have to replace the drive yourself. __________________