My old hard drive(Western Digital 1600JS - SATA and 160 GB) failed suddenly. It came with my win xp dell desktop. I am trying to see if I can recover my personal files from that. I checked with a professional and they said the drive is dead and will cost thousands of dollars to retrieve the data.

I got an external enclosure and connected my hard drive to it, but still could not access it. I also tried to run diskpart in another machine, but the drive is not displayed at all. I also did not hear any sound at all after connecting to the external enclosure. I looked at some softwares, but they are more for deleted files, is there a way I can get the data from the drive?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

What do you mean by 'failed' ?
Which are the symptoms?

1. Is it detect in computer bios?
2. does it produce any mechanical sound?

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

have a look at the circuit, and search on the forum for things relating to fuses and TVS Diodes. See if you can figure out if it is a fuse that has blown, or diode. There is quite a bit of info for it, otherwise, post pics of both sides of the circuit board in good quality and someone can guide you through some troubleshooting.

If you don't feel confident, take it to a DR company (not local computer shop) and they should be able to do it.

Thanks for the replies.

When I connected to the external enclosure, I did not hear any sound. I tried in my old computer and the new one and it is not recognized by BIOS. It does not produce any sound.

I will look at the information as well as post the harddrive images tomorrow.

Thanks again.

If it doesn't produce any sound most likely the pcb is faulty.
HaQue gave you a good advice...

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

Thanks again. I am attaching the images as zip files. Let me know if I need to replace PCB.

I suggest you seek the services of a data recovery professional, or at least someone who understands what chips look like.

BTW, JPEGs are compressed. You don't gain anything by ZIP-ing them.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks for the replies. The data recovery professionals are very expensive and that was the reason I wanted to do this myself.

I understand this is a risk, but would like to atleast try this myself first.

Thanks.

Can you see a TVS Diode in any of your photos?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks again fzabkar. I did not remove the PCB from the hard drive. I will remove that and check the TVS diode. I will let you know soon.