I recently bought a Western Digital 500GB to remove files from a laptop that needed to be sent back for repair. A friend of mine just knocked it over while it was plugged in, causing the casing and everything inside to tilt and resulting in a clicking noise while plugged in.

This drive has all of my photography, and due to the laptop being sent back, I no longer have a second copy. I was hoping that someone could tell me if it was possible to extract the files from the drive even though the computer will not read it as it is. I'm not very tech savvy, so I really have no idea of what to try here.

Starting from 1500$ . No choice.

Man, seems like a large percentage of the recent forum activity is about this particular drive.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

This is no simple matter unfortunately. This kind of damage can actually render a drive un recoverable if the force of impact was powerful enough. Where you actually doing any copying/reading of files off of that drive when the accident occured?

As BlackST said, this is probably going to run you ~$1500 from a reputable DR company, if you go to a second rate company you may pay less, but since this is a WD drive, and the nature of the problem is internal i would not trust this job with anything less then the best you can find.

I agree. The major problem that can stem from WD recovery work is compatiblity of the heads as well as allignment issues. WD are notoriously hard to work with but given to the best and you could get a succesful job done.

Good luck

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The last I heard of God he was worshiping me

Head and platter damage occurs when drive receives an impact.
Your only hope is to get your original drive with your files on it.
Get a new drive, because this one won't be any good even after a repair.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

No way. Damage would occur if the drive was running but the damage would be minimal really. You can still recover off drives with minor platter damage. I have done so myself, particularly Samsungs.

If you can get your original back then that is the easiest option but dont give up on your WD

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The last I heard of God he was worshiping me

I have based my assumption on this statement, unless envii meant it was plugged in and was not running.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

A lot of issues because a lot of big drives are sold at malls to end users unaware of the dangers. End users only care about price, are ignorant about caring and how to use them safely and whine later. Should I say 'sad about that'? NO. A spindle of 50 DVDs cost few eur/$ and can take away from risk all digital lifetime memories. Enough said.

Thank you for all of the replies. The computer was reading the files at the time of the crash, though I hadn't yet opened any of them.

I'm bringing it to someone today; I know he's done recoveries like this before, and successfully, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If not, then I restart my work. I just wanted to know my chances before I resigned to accepting the loss.

Sadly, I asked several people about this drive and was assured that it was a great one to buy... ha. Maybe something with more padding next time. Any suggestions?

BlackST: when I say photographs, I mean my work, not snapshots. In addition to everything else on the drive, these are hundreds of large, raw format files meant for high resolution prints. A spindle of DVDs that are easily scratched and take far too long to burn raw images will do nothing for me. But thanks anyway.

Well, if DVDs are not comfortable, there are a lot of options : NAS storage with plenty of RAID options, streaming tape (never failed!) in plenty of formats.... Keep in mind that HDDs FAIL !!
In any case, from what you said, your data/work is worth less (much less) than 1000 / 1500 $ and you can restart it from scratch, so the discussion is pointless.

Since you asked for suggestions:

1. An external drive is not a backup drive if it has unique data. It is an auxiliary storage device that needs to be backed up with another drive.
2. Do not run external drives vertically. If you accidentally tip over the drive, that results in a $1000+ repair bill. Usually, you would have motor seizure or some other internal malfunction, which requires opening the drive.
3. Dual-drive devices like Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo need to be configured for RAID 1 mirror prior to use. By default, they are configured as RAID 0. That means that if any one of two drives dies inside the enclosure, you will lose all data.
4. We see an abnormally high rate of failure of MyBook series devices.
5. Treat a hard drive in motion with extreme care. They are extremely fragile while the platters are spinning. They are still fragile when the power is off, but not so much.

I am writing an eBook about a comprehensive backup strategy. Should be ready next week.

You may be in luck if your friend has specific experience with WD 500GB drives and access to "clean room" environment. Those are pre-requisites for success with your case.

Unfortunately most of the time friends screw up things and then disappear... Hope this time won't happen.

I wonder if he is handy with a torx screwdriver?
Anyway the best advice is to get the original laptop drive back.
If your work is really worth anything then you should have done this by now!