External Hard Drive - Problem

MattMattMattUK

Run Disk Management (Windows component) and see what shows up, it may appear as an uninitialised driver. If it is spinning rust then it is probably damaged in the fall, if it is a self-installed disk in a caddy then it might have come lose from the SATA connectors inside, alternatively when it hit the floor the drive was damaged and it is one for the bin.

There is no point defragging/chkdsk/optimising any more, that is not the issue.

The_Fat_Controller

It seems pretty obvious to me that the disk has had a fatal fall.

He's dead Jim.

I have two "spinning rust" drives from old computers and they fit so tightly in the caddy that a fall would not be likely make them come loose, but it's worth checking if that is what you have.

If the laptops are seeing something that would indicate the interface electronics are still working but the drive platters and/or head is knackered.

Can you hear it spinning up when you connect it ?

k_man

If this is a drive to be used for backups, and it currently isn't working, do you want to trust it in the future?

GDB2222

As the OP has not responded to my suggestion to restore from backups, it is just possible that there are no backups, weird as that would seem. If so, the OP will have to decide how much he is prepared to spend on retrieving the information on the drive.

Zero cost would be to open up the case, and check the connections.  Up to £1000s to have the platter removed and the data professionally retrieved. 

k_man

bignred05 said:

After some advice please.

earlier today I was backing up some old/new doc's/photos to an Intenso 2.5 portable hard drive.

at one point the hard drive slipped and lost connection with the laptop.

Now I can connect to the same laptop, the hard drive shows as connected (and no driver  issues) 

However I can NOT see or locate any files/folders on the hard drive.

any advice please on how to get my files/folders back to view on the laptop.

** I have tried the portable hard drive on another laptop, and the same issues occurs.

I was basing my comment on this.
The current contents of the drive should not matter, if it was indeed just a backup of live files on the laptop, so restore shouldn't be needed.
 Unless the OP is really unlucky, and the laptop slips too!

Ergates

It sounds like it was probably actively writing when it fell which is bad news as the head wouldn't have been safely locked and probably ploughed into the platter which quite possibly wrecked it.

grumpycrab

bignred05 said:

despite running several Chkdsk I can not see the hard drive under File Explorer/My Computer

You keep telling us that. Please run diskmgmt  (type it in the search box) and show us the picture of that.

Olinda99

It's like pulling teeth...

GDB2222

Olinda99 said:

It's like pulling teeth...

This is the same person who apparently balanced the disc containing the only copies of some important stuff on the arm of his sofa. 

bignred05

Ergates said:

It sounds like it was probably actively writing when it fell which is bad news as the head wouldn't have been safely locked and probably ploughed into the platter which quite possibly wrecked it.

Yes it was 

Thanks for all the updates.

as for some of the suggestions, the hard drive is in a sealed casing, so I assume I can just break the seal to check for damaged connections etc.