External Hard Drive Enclosure

Hello,

I am assuming a few things here, so keep that in mind.
:)
I suggest that you go purchase a hard drive external enclosure for your drive type. They are relatively inexpensive, say, 20 to 60 dollars. You can get them from Amazon, NewEgg, and many other online retailers. Go with a site that you trust and has a good return policy. You could also just drive down to your local Walmart or BestBuy and pick one up too (you will pay a little more).

Most external USB drives are simply an enclosure with a "normal" SATA hard drive inside, some hard drives are 2.5", some are 3.5" in size. You should also consider the speed of your computer's USB ports (2.0 or 3.0) when purchasing your new external enclosure.

Once you purchase that, you will need to remove your hard drive from the broken enclosure. Usually, there are just a few screws holding it together. Be aware that sometimes they cover the screw holes with stickers. Remove the hard drive and install that into your new enclosure. Your data should all be intact. Try this using the same computer or the same operating system to verify your data.

I hope this helps. :)
Richard

If it is the external hard drive enclosure that is broken then yes. But if it is the hard drive itself that is broken then no.
From what happened I'm thinking that it is the external hard drive enclosure that is broken. That being said, you can easily buy one without the hard drive online. When doing this be sure you know what kind of hard drive is in your Maxtor enclosure. This is important because you need to be sure that your hard drive and enclosure are compatible. Check to see if it uses SATA, ATA, or PATA connectors and then buy the corresponding external hard drive enclosure.
Once you have bought your new empty external hard drive enclosure, it is simply a matter of opening up your Maxtor enclosure and moving the hard drive inside to your newly purchased enclosure and connecting it to your computer.
To avoid problems like this in the future, look into "cloud based storage" to back up all of your data securely online.

Your external HDD may be corrupted. Recover the data before you use it.

First things first: STOP using the external hard dive that you want to recover data from in case you may quite possibly ruin your chances of data recovery.

Then Recommend you have a try of Wondershare Data Recovery, a data recovery program with both Windows and Mac versions provided. It should help you. Get the related versions here,

Data Recovery Windows (for Windows)
Data Recovery Mac (for Apple Mac OS)

Remember - Do NOT try & write anything back to your hard drive until you can recover your data safely!

An external storage-device has four major components:

* the USB cable

* the power-adapter

* the disk-drive inside the enclosure

* the USB-to-disk-drive adapter inside the enclosure.

One of these components has failed.

Try a different USB cable.

Try connecting to a different USB port on your computer.

Try connecting to a USB port on a different computer.

Take a "multi-meter" and measure both the voltage and amperage output from the AC adapter, and compare with the specifications on the label on the adapter.

Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and then connect it as a "slave" disk-drive in a desktop computer, to see if it works at all.

Purchase a new, compatible, disk-drive, and install it in the enclosure, to "revive" your external storage device.

Get the part-number and serial-number from the label on your disk-drive, and access the manufacturer's web-site, and use "check warranty status", to see if they will replace the device, at minimal cost to you.

Note that W.D. has a "Customer Loyalty" program -- you can buy a new W.D. device, through the W.D. web-site, at a significant discount.

Is the drive's warrany still valid?

The external storage device has several major components:
* USB cable
* external power-supply
* disk-drive inside the enclosure
* USB-to-disk-drive adapter inside the enclosure.
Try a different USB cable.
Try a different USB port on your computer.
Try a USB port on a different computer.
Take a multi-meter, and measure the output voltage/amperage of the power-supply,
and compare with the specifications on the label of the power-supply.
Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and attach it as a "slave" drive in a desktop computer, to see if bypassing the USB-to-disk-drive adapter bypasses the problem.
Look at the label on the disk-drive, for manufacturer, product-number, serial-number, and manufacture date. Access the manufacturer's web-site, and use "check warranty status" to see if the warranty still is valid. If so, the drive can be replaced, at minimal cost to you.
Buy a new, compatible, disk-drive, and install it in the enclosure, to "revive" your external storage device.
Search online for a professional "data recovery service". For a significant fee, they can repair your disk-drive, just long-enough to copy your files to a new disk-drive. Check Seagate's web-site; they offer a "no-charge-if-we-cannot-recover-your-files" service.

Hi

A clicking hard drive means that the mechanical parts of the drive are breaking down. This also means that the drive slows down and will eventually stop working. If you need to retrieve data from your clicking hard drive before it fails, you can do this with an external hard drive enclosure. This enclosure will turn your hard drive into a drive that is readable through a USB drive.

1)Place the hard drive inside the enclosure.
2)Push the enclosure's two rectangular cables into the back of the hard drive. These will power the drive and allow a computer to "see" the files.
3)Screw the enclosure tight with a Phillips head screwdriver. This will secure the hard drive within the enclosure, preventing it from moving around or falling out.
4)Connect the enclosure power cord into a socket. Place the enclosure's USB cord into the computer.
5)Click "Start," then press "My Computer." The drive will be located under the hard drive portion of "My Computer." Double-click it to open the drive. Drag the data you want to the computer for safe keeping.

In most cases the hard drives which clicks cannot be restore to normal functionality,so please ensure that you recover your data at the earliest before the hard drives fails completely.

Hi,

There are a few reasons this would happen, The options are a faulty driver in your PC, a failed circuit board in the enclosure or a failed circuit in the drive itself.

First try the drive on a different PC and see if it works. If it does reply back and we can look into the failed driver. If it doesn't then take it to your local PC shop and have the technicians move the hard drive into a new enclosure.

If it works in the new enclosure buy the enclosure and your on the way. If it doesn't, then the hard drive itself is the problem. If that is the case you will need the help of a data recovery pro to retrieve your data. If this is the case reply with your location(Country, State and City) and I will assist you in finding a reputable pro to assist you.

Hope this helps FixYa,

Chris

first of all what do you mean by connector burned out. any way for recovery there are two options, either you can connect the drive to another PC & Recover or use a External Enclosure to use it as a USB drive.

This may sound silly, but does the external enclosure have power? You may have neglected to connect the required power adapter, or it may not be working properly. You might also have a problem with the enclosure's internal power or data cables. They are sometimes pretty flimsy, and sometimes they can go bad.

There's also the chance the drive itself is bad and isn't being detected as a result. Or the interface board in the external enclosure may have failed, and the drive is OK but the computer doesn't see it. If you are connecting to a desktop PC, you can try connecting the drive directly to the main board using an IDE cable and try accessing it that way. Just be sure to set the master/slave jumper accordingly if you do that.