Hi all,

I dropped my hard drive today, and since the drop I'm unable to load my device. My PC picks up that I've connected an external device, however, the hard drive doesn't load. When the HDD receives power I can hear a faint beeping sound within the casing?? also the lights flash on and off as it would normally do during the loading process, usually once the HDD loads the light stay on and then I can access my files.

It seams like it HDD is getting power but it's not loading the device, I cant hear any spinning coming from the drive.

Does anyone know what this could be, and at worst case can I sill get my files off this HDD?

- You will NOT be able to get data off this drive any more on your own - no way, no trick...
- the more you try and stress your hdd, the more data may be destroyed and lost for ever
- the more you try and stress your hdd, the higher the data recovery costs will be
- contact either a local data recovery company or ask for collegues out of this forum

there is NO DIY (Do It Yourself) solution

+++

Thanks for the advice, I'll search around for a local repair facility and hopefully they can get it up and running again.

I search the net and it appears that this faint beeping is a common fault with Seagate, from what I've read Seagate offer no warranty for this fault, they can repair the fault if the user is willing to pay and outrages amount anywhere from US$1000-$6000. Apparently is cost so much because the repair is done in laboratory conditions / dust free. I can't find any information if anyone has actually paid for the repair.

The thing that makes me so angry about all of this is not the cost to replace the HDD, but the loss of my files and programs, so much for a stress free backup system for in case my PC dies! does this mean I need to buy 2 HDD's, 1 to back up the other, a backup for a backup?

Hi, sorry to hear about your misfortune!
This is starting to become a very common scenario.
In answer to your question about backing up................your idea about 2 hard drives might work for you but really your data will still be at risk.
Have you looked at offline storage?
I would advise most home users and some business users to keep an online backup of the most precious files rather than invest in hardware which often fails.
Take a look at SugarSync https://www.sugarsync.com where you can get 5gb online storage for free. If it works for you then you can purchase more space. There are many other companies which can offer this service at really competitive rates just choose the one which suits you.
Cloud computing does seem the way to go?

DVDs are even cheaper...

You have to do your own risk-analysis of exactly which risks you are trying to mitigate, and how much you are willing to pay in money & time, to reduce your chances of being affected by those risks. For example - having data on 2 disks does reduce the chances of data loss due to some risks (e.g. disk failure, although multiple disks can still fail within a short space of time, and you have to consider how you will detect deterioration of the disks) - but if the disks are located in the same house, then fire / flood / theft etc. may still affect both copies.

Also, if you have a hardware fault that causes silent data corruption, then you might propogate that corruption onto your backup copy. This is where having multiple generations of backups would need to be considered - at the cost of time and money, as I mentioned, if this is a risk that you want to consider & mitigate.

Online backups have risks too - service providers could disappear, or lose your data, or you could lose your online connection when you need access to your data. And is your online connection upload speed suitable for the amount of data that you want to save to an online backup? These are just a few of the things to consider.

One thing you said sounds like this disk was not a true backup, however:

If this disk really was just a backup of your PC, and your PC is still OK, then you wouldn't care about this disk, since the data is still on your PC.

Perhaps you mean that some data exists only on this disk, after it has been deleted from the PC i.e. some data on this does no longer exists elsewhere? In that case, the disk was not a backup - it was a single copy, and therefore a single point of potential data loss.

Good luck and hopefully you'll be able to get your data recovered.

the first post is not entirely correct IMO. Looks like the drive of urs has sticktion problem. Sliders that suppose to provide the heads with air cushion griped the platter surface and are not allowing the spindle to rotate. Ill agree that chances of DIY are VERY LOW, but its not impossible.