I have similar problems with more HDD's. After certain action the HDD is not recognized by "fdisk -l" or "lsusb" or "dmesg".

Latest HDD (Fujitsu MJA2500BH) just crashed today after falling down with laptop MSI X340 from 30-40cm to floor. Laptop was still running for a minute and than rebooted it self. Afterward the HDD was not recognized by BIOS anymore. I have put the HDD to external USB case and connected to my linux however it is not recognized by the system (fdisk, lsusb, dmesg).

It still spins and some noise comes out but only for a minute, than the noise stops but HDD spins further.

Do you have any hints if I can proceed with some software to gather the data or rather consider professional help?
Software like hdparm, smartmontools are working only when the device is recognized by the system and included in /dev/s...?

Would it help to put the HDD directly to the laptop (in comparison to external USB case) and try some linux live cd?

Seems to me that the heads are bad. Not DIY, see a pro.
If, as I think the heads are bad, no it will not help. Just, maybe damage it more.

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Lemmy

No DIY doable here. The drive has a mechanical issue and hopefully no media damage.

Software solutions not applicable.

Strongly suggest to stop powering the drive on. Seek pro assistance.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Agree. No DIY

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Thank you a lot for reply. To me it also seems like mechanical damage.
I would suppose that professional company get retrieve the data out if media was not damaged?
If the heads are damaged, can that be repaired?

If the heads are damaged and they did not damaged the platters surface, it can be repaired.

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Lemmy