I have a WD MyBook 1TB External hard drive. (With lots of important stuff on it!)

I knocked it off the coffee table the other day, and the motor started buzzing. Not really loud, but still abnormally. When I try to plug it in, Windows recognizes it as a USB mass-storage device, but I can't access it at all and it doesn't show up in My Computer.

If it's a problem with the motor, I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard to repair/replace. I have the drive removed from the casing, but I wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking for before I opened up the drive itself.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Sorry, you guessed wrong! This is not something you can do yourself. Send it to a pro if you want your data back. If the drive has extensive media damage, it may not be recoverable at all.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Well, what do you think the problem is? I don't want to pay a lot to have it fixed. I'm no expert, but I can figure stuff out, and I can tell what's within and beyond my ability. What would a pro do that I couldn't?

And if I do take it to a pro, how much am I probably going to have to pay?

First off if it is buzzing this can be do to spindle motor. platters out of alignment from the fall. The HDD has internal problems. Plus further more these drives have a major issue with head alilgnment. Once opened and heads swapped out the alignment issue comes into play on this one. If you can not align heads, move mulitiple platters from one chassis to another, or unstick a spindle motor then guess what a pro can do what you can not do. Do you have the tools to deal with media damage from the fall? This can be accomplished with an investment of around 10.000 dollars US. After you will need to have an idea how to use what you just purchased. This can take anywhere from 1 to 5 years depending on how you go about it. Plus let me say this does not stop here after this time frame. R&D goes on each day in a DR company. The answers are not cut and paste or clear. What works on one drive could work on another but chances are they won't work on another drive.

Problem in this one is you need experience to understand why it is buzzing. What did you do to the inside of this drive when you dumped it off the table.

If you think you can do it yourself then have a go at it. But I can guarantee you one thing you will never succeed on this one. But on the other hand it is your data and you think you can do what a Pro does then I wish you all the luck on this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Ann, you forgot possible media damage and the requirement of clean room gear, plus the final need for something serious to clone the drive and extract data , just in case...

Neither arrogance nor ignorance will help you with this case. Take note of what people have told you on your post - it's not a DIY job. If you want your data back you'll need to send this to a pro, otherwise feel free to search the forum threads and do some research and have a go at it yourself, but it's almost certain that you will fail. If you don't mind losing the data and the drive it could be a good learning experience.

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Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

This time i totally agree with the DR guys, it's not a DIY job and if the data is important better spend the $ to get it recovered ( if it can ). The drive tried to park the heads on impact, but we all know that this does not work, so it's pretty possible you have damage to the platters and not all data could be extracted anyway. If it has fallen on a carpet or whatever so the G's were less then you may be in luck, but still you won't be able to fix it if this is your first DR job or even 10-th with any success. Even with tools multi-platter sometimes get out of alignment.
But if you decide to forget about the data then first find a suitable donor drive and then think about opening it.

or try some "home remedy" like shaking the drive a bit ( not hitting it ), overvolt it a bit or last resort freeze the bastard and get on with your life ( and without the data ), actually the whole freeze thing is not working on newer drives so it's stupid and dangerous, but still a lot of fun