External Hard Drive - Help please

shazamaca

Hi

I have an external hard drive (Hitachi). I have note used it for a while and when I plugged it into my laptop it is not recognised. There is no message coming up. The light on the hard drive is coming on but nothing is happening.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can access my hard drive please?

Hope this is enough info as I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to things technical!!

whoareya

Does the hdd make any noise, if it starts up (hums) that might tell you more.

I've dropped my hdd from a short height, off the sofa and it broke.

A broken hdd will start up and make clicking sounds.... If the data is critical take it to a shop, but dont hold your breath

BritBrat

Does it need an external power source?

Did you boot up with it pluged in?

dkpoole

I had a similar thing happening with a 2.5 in external drive [ no power supply needed]
It stopped working on 1 computer but worked normally on another
Try plugging it into another USB socket on the same computer or try in a friends computer

shazamaca

whoareya wrote: »

Does the hdd make any noise, if it starts up (hums) that might tell you more.

I've dropped my hdd from a short height, off the sofa and it broke.

A broken hdd will start up and make clicking sounds.... If the data is critical take it to a shop, but dont hold your breath

Thanks for this, it does make a clicking sound when I plug it in. I cannot remember dropping it at any time though. It is quite new only bought it in March but its hardly been used.

Does the clicking mean that it has to go to hard drive heaven or can it be fixed. There is only music on it but I was hoping to put all my pictures on it as my laptop hard drive is almost full.

shazamaca

BritBrat wrote: »

Does it need an external power source?

Did you boot up with it pluged in?

It doesn't need an external power source. I didn't boot up with it pluged in first time and when that didn't work I rebooted with it pluged in.