Dropped my external hard drive yesterday (Western digital 1TB P/N:WDBMWV0020BBK-05) and now it will not connect to pc. It just sits making a ticking sound for a couple of minutes, then shuts off completely. My hobby is in photography and It contains a number of photographs that I have been working on for the past few months.
I have a 'Transcend StoreJet' Harddrive and have dropped it. It's one of those portable hard drives that plug into the USB port on a computer. Since then It doesn't work, I have tried new cables but it still isn't working. I have a lot of work on it so need to get the work off it.
Portable hard drives such as the ever popular WD Passports are usually the recipients of some rough treatment. They are built to withstand knocks and bumps, but a fall from a significant height is going to cause serious problems to the hard drive. This problem is common to all portable hard drives, including the Transcend Store Jet and other external hard drives. At the heart of the problem is the mechanical nature of these hard drives. When one of these drives is operating a mechanical arm known as an 'actuator arm' moves across the surface of the hard drive reading and writing data to the hard disk. A significant knock or bump during the operation of the hard drive results in damage to either the actuator arm, the disk, or both. This then causes the hard drive to make a ticking sound, as the drive tries to pass a self test procedure before passing control to the computer. This testing procedure will never succeed as the hard drive is now damaged to a significant extent. Retrieving the data from a dropped external or portable hard drive often relies heavily on experts who should be able to repair and restore the information from a damaged hard drive. Rather than meddle with a dropped hard drive I recommend you use one of these expert companies and give yourself at least a fighting chance of getting your data back.