External Hard drive dying

[Kage]

My dad has an external 500GB hard drive for his laptop, made by Western Digital.

Now, hes got alot of it backed up, but alot of important stuff put on it in the past few months hasn't been.

He plugged it in today and the green light around the centre flashes twice and switches off, also stopping the PC its plugged into on USB from functioning properly.

If you don't plug it into USB though, and only have the power plugged in, it carries on working, and you can hear the drive spinning.

Plug it in though to USB while on, or turn it on with the USB in, and it doesn't spin up. Just flashes twice and switches off.

I'm thinking the only way of backing stuff now is to open it and shove it into my PC, yet, it'll still have the guarantee, and he hasn't had it that long either.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Yeah, get the stuff backed up onto another hd ASAP before it dies and you lose it. Do whatever you gotta do to get it backed up.

 

[Kage]

Open it in that case...

This external drive though doesn't seem to have any screws or anything. Possibly to stop you being able to open it up, obviously...

yet, even if it was to be replaced with the guarantee, theres no point, since it'd come back empty.

Its this one:

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/screen_shot_images/917/202418917_001.jpg

 

[lhuser]

Something tell me that the drive's external controller is problematic. Could be shorting. I'd suggest taking a spare drive and trying it with the USB connection.

 

[Kage]

It could be that actually, but I'm afraid I haven't got another external drive to test

I definietly can't find anywhere to open the unit.

Other USB devices work fine on the laptop though, and I even tried this 500GB drive on my computer, and it crashed that too.

 

[lhuser]

Yeah, it sounds like the external connections shorts out the rest. Take out the drive...and the screws are probably hidden by the stickers.

 

[Kage]

Thanks for the help

As for stickers, theres not one. Where theres meant to be screws, theres nothing there.

I'd expect the sides to have them, but theres just little resesses but its all plastic.

 

[Raffaz]

Have you tested the drive on another pc, just to rule out a problem with the USB on the computer your trying to use it with?

 

[Kage]

Yep, I said that above. Tried it on my dads laptop and on my desktop I'm using now.

 

[lhuser]

Thanks for the help

As for stickers, theres not one. Where theres meant to be screws, theres nothing there.

I'd expect the sides to have them, but theres just little resesses but its all plastic.

then it's clipped. Use a flat screwdriver and open it up.