I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?
--
Graeme

On Sun, 09 Nov 2014 19:19:07 +0000, News wrote:

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Just in case it is the enclosure and not the drive, take the drive out and
connect it internally to your desktop.
That is, connect it as you would any other disc drive into a desktop.
You can leave it hanging free - you don't have to fix it into the chassis.

If it starts up O.K. then you know the enclosure is at fault.
You may even just have a bad connection and re-seating it within the
enclosure may fix it.
However if it still doesn't run then it is borked, and AFAIK drives are
not repairable after physical damage.

Cheers

Dave R



--
Windows 8.1 on PCSpecialist box

"David" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 09 Nov 2014 19:19:07 +0000, News wrote:

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Just in case it is the enclosure and not the drive, take the drive out and
connect it internally to your desktop.
That is, connect it as you would any other disc drive into a desktop.
You can leave it hanging free - you don't have to fix it into the chassis.

If it starts up O.K. then you know the enclosure is at fault.
You may even just have a bad connection and re-seating it within the
enclosure may fix it.
However if it still doesn't run then it is borked, and AFAIK drives are
not repairable after physical damage.

They can be if the connector has got damaged by the drop.

Whether its worth is is a separate matter tho with drives so cheap.

On Sunday, November 9, 2014 7:39:55 PM UTC, David wrote:
On Sun, 09 Nov 2014 19:19:07 +0000, News wrote:

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Just in case it is the enclosure and not the drive, take the drive out and
connect it internally to your desktop.
That is, connect it as you would any other disc drive into a desktop.
You can leave it hanging free - you don't have to fix it into the chassis.

If it starts up O.K. then you know the enclosure is at fault.
You may even just have a bad connection and re-seating it within the
enclosure may fix it.
However if it still doesn't run then it is borked, and AFAIK drives are
not repairable after physical damage.

+1


NT

"News" wrote in message
...

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB 2.5
inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the drive,
which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive illuminates
initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and let them
reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Its possible you have just broken a connection when you
dropped it and that is why it doesn't spin up anymore.

Those 2.5" drives are pretty rugged, but can certainly be
permanently irreparably ****ed by dropping badly enough.

On 09/11/2014 21:02, Rod Speed wrote:


"News" wrote in message
...

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers
and let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Its possible you have just broken a connection when you
dropped it and that is why it doesn't spin up anymore.

Those 2.5" drives are pretty rugged, but can certainly be
permanently irreparably ****ed by dropping badly enough.

Maybe an SSD would be more resilient.


--
Michael Chare

"Michael Chare" mUNDERSCOREnews@chareDOTorgDOTuk wrote in message
...
On 09/11/2014 21:02, Rod Speed wrote:


"News" wrote in message
...

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers
and let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Its possible you have just broken a connection when you
dropped it and that is why it doesn't spin up anymore.

Those 2.5" drives are pretty rugged, but can certainly be
permanently irreparably ****ed by dropping badly enough.

Maybe an SSD would be more resilient.

No maybe about it but you can still see damage to the
electrical connections etc with a badly designed drive
which doesn't restrain the components enough so say
the pcb gets cracked by the drop etc.

On 09/11/2014 19:19, News wrote:

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Check out this video. If you have the problem described, it's not
repairable, but you might be able to get it going well enough to recover
most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Cheers,

Colin.

"Colin Stamp" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 09/11/2014 19:19, News wrote:

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB
2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the
drive, which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive
illuminates initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and
let them reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?

Check out this video. If you have the problem described, it's not
repairable, but you might be able to get it going well enough to recover
most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

That isnt relevant to a dropped hard drive.

It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Makes a lot more sense to check if something broke
outside the hard drive itself in the enclosure instead.

On 09/11/2014 23:01, Rod Speed wrote:


"Colin Stamp" wrote in message

Check out this video. If you have the problem described, it's not
repairable, but you might be able to get it going well enough to recover
most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

That isnt relevant to a dropped hard drive.

Isn't it? I have a mental image of the drive landing on its edge with
the heads flopping out of the parked position and jamming into the platters.

How do you think the drive in the video managed to get into the state it
was in if it wasn't a mechanical impact?


It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Makes a lot more sense to check if something broke
outside the hard drive itself in the enclosure instead.

Obviously opening the drive is a last resort after you've checked
everything else...

Cheers,

Colin.

Colin Stamp wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Colin Stamp wrote

Check out this video. If you have the problem described,
it's not repairable, but you might be able to get it going
well enough to recover most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

That isnt relevant to a dropped hard drive.

Isn't it?

No.

I have a mental image of the drive landing on its edge
with the heads flopping out of the parked position

That doesn't happen with 2.5" drives, the
heads are latched very securely indeed
when parked, just because they are so easy
to drop in the things they are used in.

and jamming into the platters.

That doesn't happen either, essentially because
there is normally only a single platter and there
is no way to get jammed because it has to be
able to traverse the platter in normal use.

How do you think the drive in the video managed to get
into the state it was in if it wasn't a mechanical impact?

That is normally due to the way the platter is coated seeing
the heads stick to the surface as the coating deteriorates.

You don't see much of that at all now because the heads
no longer land on the surface when the drive stops, they
are retracted and latched off the latter instead now.

It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Makes a lot more sense to check if something broke
outside the hard drive itself in the enclosure instead.

Obviously opening the drive is a last resort
after you've checked everything else...

And you should be able to hear if the problem is that the
heads are stuck to the platter as they were with this drive.
That gives that very characteristic noise you heard in the
video. When the problem is that the motor has died or
is no longer getting power anymore due to the connector
coming off when it was dropped, or due to a break in the
power connection to the drive, it doesn't sound anything
like that, you just don't get any noise from the motor at all.

In article ,
Colin Stamp writes:
On 09/11/2014 23:01, Rod Speed wrote:


"Colin Stamp" wrote in message

Check out this video. If you have the problem described, it's not
repairable, but you might be able to get it going well enough to recover
most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

That isnt relevant to a dropped hard drive.

Isn't it? I have a mental image of the drive landing on its edge with
the heads flopping out of the parked position and jamming into the platters.

How do you think the drive in the video managed to get into the state it
was in if it wasn't a mechanical impact?

Power loss and failure to park heads, followed by a
standard case of head stiction - heads stick to the platter
if left in that state for a long time. It even happens with
disks which park the heads on the platter anyway.

His method of trying to shock the heads loose is wrong.
If he had done it by rotating the drive about the disk axis
in one hand (arm aligned with disk axis) and stopping it by
thumping it against other hand (something soft), the interia
of the platters would break the stiction, and without exceeding
the max g-force on the drive. Bashing it on the bench relies on
the much smaller interia on the heads, exceeds the drive's max
g-force, and will liberate trapped dirt inside the drive, besides
being less likely to work.

It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Makes a lot more sense to check if something broke
outside the hard drive itself in the enclosure instead.

Obviously opening the drive is a last resort after you've checked
everything else...

I've done it for demo purposes - i.e. not on a drive where I
want the data. You often get loads of bad sectors after doing so,
and this is much more likely on a modern higher density drive.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 10/11/2014 00:53, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Colin Stamp writes:
On 09/11/2014 23:01, Rod Speed wrote:


"Colin Stamp" wrote in message

Check out this video. If you have the problem described, it's not
repairable, but you might be able to get it going well enough to recover
most of the data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

That isnt relevant to a dropped hard drive.

Isn't it? I have a mental image of the drive landing on its edge with
the heads flopping out of the parked position and jamming into the platters.

How do you think the drive in the video managed to get into the state it
was in if it wasn't a mechanical impact?

Power loss and failure to park heads, followed by a
standard case of head stiction - heads stick to the platter
if left in that state for a long time. It even happens with
disks which park the heads on the platter anyway.

I see. I'm surprised they can't park in the case of a power loss. I'd
have thought that would have been fairly easy to achieve.


His method of trying to shock the heads loose is wrong.
If he had done it by rotating the drive about the disk axis
in one hand (arm aligned with disk axis) and stopping it by
thumping it against other hand (something soft), the interia
of the platters would break the stiction, and without exceeding
the max g-force on the drive. Bashing it on the bench relies on
the much smaller interia on the heads, exceeds the drive's max
g-force, and will liberate trapped dirt inside the drive, besides
being less likely to work.

I'd agree there. Seeing how hard that one was was stuck though, I don't
think even the platter inertia would have been enough to free it up,
particularly if you're not allowing yourself to stop it against
something hard. It looked as though it was jammed really well.


It's a long shot, but it sounds like you have nothing to lose.

Makes a lot more sense to check if something broke
outside the hard drive itself in the enclosure instead.

Obviously opening the drive is a last resort after you've checked
everything else...

I've done it for demo purposes - i.e. not on a drive where I
want the data. You often get loads of bad sectors after doing so,
and this is much more likely on a modern higher density drive.

Indeed. There would have been bad sectors even from the original
sticking, let-alone after graunching it free again. As a usable drive it
was already toast, but he claimed the bulk of the files could be
recovered after unsticking. That's a much better outcome than just
writing off all the data along with the drive.

Cheers,

Colin.

Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty resilient, but
a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.
You ought to be able to get another drive for it, which may be cheaper than
the whole thing, kind of depends whos drive they use inside and if its a
standard interface. I'd doubt if the usb to drive part is broken myself, its
going to be the mechanical part. Was it very old?
Hopefully no important data on it tht was not backed up some place.
brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"News" wrote in message
...

I use a little Toshiba Netbook most of the time, with an external USB 2.5
inch Toshiba hard drive, which was perfect until I dropped the drive,
which no longer works.

The Netbook tells me my USB device is not working. Plugging into a
desktop gives the same result. The little light on the drive illuminates
initially, then goes out. I uninstalled all USB drivers and let them
reinstall 'just in case', but no change.

Are these things repairable?
--
Graeme

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty resilient, but
a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.
You ought to be able to get another drive for it, which may be cheaper than
the whole thing, kind of depends whos drive they use inside and if its a
standard interface. I'd doubt if the usb to drive part is broken myself, its
going to be the mechanical part. Was it very old?


Actually, IME it's a cheap if not cheaper to buy a complete new unit
than buy a bare drive.

I've had more than one USB HDD enclosure fail where it was something to
do with the enclosure's electronics rather than the drive itself.

But as has been said, only way to tell is to take out the drive and try
it in a desktop, or connected with a usb to sata drive cable (a few quid
on ebay/amazon)
--
Chris French

Chris French wrote
Brian Gaff wrote

Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty
resilient, but a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.

You ought to be able to get another drive for it, which
may be cheaper than the whole thing, kind of depends
whos drive they use inside and if its a standard interface.

They hardly ever aren't anymore with external drives.

I'd doubt if the usb to drive part is broken myself,
its going to be the mechanical part.

The problem can be the usb to drive part has
been broken by the fall, just because the drive
itself isnt that well constrained in the housing
and is the heaviest component in there.

Was it very old?

Actually, IME it's a cheap if not cheaper to buy
a complete new unit than buy a bare drive.

That varys. I have quite a few multi TB drives that I mostly use in
a docking station for the PVR overflow, stuff I haven't got around
to watching or even editing out what I have watched from files.

Sometimes a full external hard drive is actually cheaper than
the drive itself inside the external hard drive. Not usually tho.

I've had more than one USB HDD enclosure fail where it was something
to do with the enclosure's electronics rather than the drive itself.

Yeah, quite a few of them do have pretty crude power supplys.

But as has been said, only way to tell is to take out the drive and try
it in a desktop, or connected with a usb to sata drive cable (a few quid
on ebay/amazon)

On Mon, 10 Nov 2014 09:28:16 +0000, Chris French
wrote:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty resilient, but
a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.
You ought to be able to get another drive for it, which may be cheaper than
the whole thing, kind of depends whos drive they use inside and if its a
standard interface. I'd doubt if the usb to drive part is broken myself, its
going to be the mechanical part. Was it very old?


Actually, IME it's a cheap if not cheaper to buy a complete new unit
than buy a bare drive.

I've had more than one USB HDD enclosure fail where it was something to
do with the enclosure's electronics rather than the drive itself.

But as has been said, only way to tell is to take out the drive and try
it in a desktop, or connected with a usb to sata drive cable (a few quid
on ebay/amazon)

Depending on the make and its vintage, the drive itself may only have
a USB port with no SATA connector in sight. USB2 doesn't support the
full ATA command set (I don't know about USB3 in this regard) so if
he's limited to using only USB, he may not be able to run any
diagnostics software to investigate any further (unless the
manufacturer has made s special USB disk interface version of their
diagnostics software).
--
J B Good

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty resilient, but
a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.

Thanks for all the replies, as ever. No progress on the drive today, as
I have been gathering backups and consolidating stuff. The damaged
drive stored only data, mainly jpegs and pdfs, but no programs or
e-mails. I seem to be about a month behind, but have not added anything
significant in that time, such as personal photos.

Back to the drive itself. It is a Toshiba HDTB120EK3CA 2TB USB 3.0 2.5
Inch Hard Drive, which I used mainly with a Tosh Netbook. It worked
perfectly until I dropped it onto a hard wooden table yesterday. The
drive spins (I can feel the vibration) but the PC cannot 'see' it. This
possibly suggests a connection problem rather than physical damage to
the drive itself. I will investigate further, and report back. Seems
like the best way forward is to try and extract it from the case, and
directly connect to a PC.

--
Graeme

News wrote
Brian Gaff wrote

Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty
resilient, but a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.

Thanks for all the replies, as ever. No progress on the drive today,
as I have been gathering backups and consolidating stuff. The
damaged drive stored only data, mainly jpegs and pdfs, but no
programs or e-mails. I seem to be about a month behind, but have
not added anything significant in that time, such as personal photos.

Certainly something that needs frequent backups given that its
so easy to drop those. Not that easy to completely automate tho.

Back to the drive itself. It is a Toshiba HDTB120EK3CA 2TB USB 3.0 2.5
Inch Hard Drive, which I used mainly with a Tosh Netbook. It worked
perfectly until I dropped it onto a hard wooden table yesterday. The
drive spins (I can feel the vibration) but the PC cannot 'see' it. This
possibly suggests a connection problem rather than physical damage to
the drive itself.

Not necessarily. With modern hard drives if the drive can't
start in the sense that it shows up as a normal drive the PC
won't be able to see it. It could certainly have got damaged
in a way that prevents the drive from being visible.

The test for that is to take it out of the enclosure and
plug it into something that can take a SATA drive like
one of the cheap USB/SATA adapters, a docking station
or a desktop PC etc.

I will investigate further, and report back.

That last is very desirable and too rare IMO.

Seems like the best way forward is to try and extract
it from the case, and directly connect to a PC.

Or put it in a docking station etc.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 06:52:07 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

News wrote
Brian Gaff wrote

Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty
resilient, but a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.

Thanks for all the replies, as ever. No progress on the drive today,
as I have been gathering backups and consolidating stuff. The
damaged drive stored only data, mainly jpegs and pdfs, but no
programs or e-mails. I seem to be about a month behind, but have
not added anything significant in that time, such as personal photos.

Certainly something that needs frequent backups given that its
so easy to drop those. Not that easy to completely automate tho.

Back to the drive itself. It is a Toshiba HDTB120EK3CA 2TB USB 3.0 2.5
Inch Hard Drive, which I used mainly with a Tosh Netbook. It worked
perfectly until I dropped it onto a hard wooden table yesterday. The
drive spins (I can feel the vibration) but the PC cannot 'see' it. This
possibly suggests a connection problem rather than physical damage to
the drive itself.

Not necessarily. With modern hard drives if the drive can't
start in the sense that it shows up as a normal drive the PC
won't be able to see it. It could certainly have got damaged
in a way that prevents the drive from being visible.

The test for that is to take it out of the enclosure and
plug it into something that can take a SATA drive like
one of the cheap USB/SATA adapters, a docking station
or a desktop PC etc.

I will investigate further, and report back.

That last is very desirable and too rare IMO.

It will be interesting to see what Graeme finds when he opens the
enclosure.


Seems like the best way forward is to try and extract
it from the case, and directly connect to a PC.

Or put it in a docking station etc.

There's a strong chance that the drive itself may only sport a USB3
port in place of SATA connectors. I tried googling for a technical
review of this drive where the reviewer dismantles the drive from the
enclosure but to no avail.

If you're going to use a SATA docking station to attach the drive to
a PC for further diagnostic analysis, your best chance of success is
to use an e-SATA connected dock. USB is likely to prove an
insurmountable barrier to most HDD diagnostic software.
--
J B Good

"Johny B Good" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 06:52:07 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

News wrote
Brian Gaff wrote

Not really, its probably internally damaged. Some are pretty
resilient, but a drop to a hard floor usually buggers them.

Thanks for all the replies, as ever. No progress on the drive today,
as I have been gathering backups and consolidating stuff. The
damaged drive stored only data, mainly jpegs and pdfs, but no
programs or e-mails. I seem to be about a month behind, but have
not added anything significant in that time, such as personal photos.

Certainly something that needs frequent backups given that its
so easy to drop those. Not that easy to completely automate tho.

Back to the drive itself. It is a Toshiba HDTB120EK3CA 2TB USB 3.0 2.5
Inch Hard Drive, which I used mainly with a Tosh Netbook. It worked
perfectly until I dropped it onto a hard wooden table yesterday. The
drive spins (I can feel the vibration) but the PC cannot 'see' it. This
possibly suggests a connection problem rather than physical damage to
the drive itself.

Not necessarily. With modern hard drives if the drive can't
start in the sense that it shows up as a normal drive the PC
won't be able to see it. It could certainly have got damaged
in a way that prevents the drive from being visible.

The test for that is to take it out of the enclosure and
plug it into something that can take a SATA drive like
one of the cheap USB/SATA adapters, a docking station
or a desktop PC etc.

I will investigate further, and report back.

That last is very desirable and too rare IMO.

It will be interesting to see what Graeme finds when he opens the
enclosure.


Seems like the best way forward is to try and extract
it from the case, and directly connect to a PC.

Or put it in a docking station etc.

There's a strong chance that the drive itself may
only sport a USB3 port in place of SATA connectors.

The chance isnt as high as that. They do
exist, but they arent all that common.

I tried googling for a technical review of this drive where the
reviewer dismantles the drive from the enclosure but to no avail.

Yeah, you don't see too many do that with stuff like that.

If you're going to use a SATA docking station to attach the drive to
a PC for further diagnostic analysis, your best chance of success is
to use an e-SATA connected dock. USB is likely to prove an
insurmountable barrier to most HDD diagnostic software.

I was talking about using the docking station to see
if the drive works fine outside the case, not to do any
diagnosis of it.