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Repair information on hard drives or hard disks. Hard drives are magnetic data storage devices. They are used in most desktop, laptop, and server due to their low cost and high data density.

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dropped external hard drive making clicking noise recovery?

I dropped my external off of my tower , it still installs drivers but it does not read , is there a way to recover the hard drive or the information ?

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Sadly the click noise is the clue here: The drives mechanical part is damaged (head unit damaged).

If you must recover the data on the drive your only hope is to send the drive out to a recovery outfit that can repair the drive long enough to recovery your data. This is quite expensive!

There is nothing you can do to fix this as you need a ultra clean room and highly specialized tools. Here's a service outfit I've used and a vid which will give you an idea on what is needed: Secure Data Recovery

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You could also use the device as a paperweight after taking it out of your current enclosure and re-purposing the enclosure with a new drive.

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If your external hard drive is no longer reading after it was dropped, there may still be a chance to recover your data. Here are some steps you can take to try and recover your hard drive or the information:

  1. Check the physical connections: Make sure the external hard drive is properly connected to your computer and check the USB port for any physical damage.
  2. Use data recovery software: You can use data recovery software such as Recuva, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, or TestDisk to try to recover your lost data. These programs can scan your hard drive for lost files and recover them if possible.
  3. Take it to a professional data recovery service: If you are unable to recover your data using software, you can consider taking your hard drive to a professional data recovery service. These services have specialized equipment and expertise to recover data from damaged hard drives.

However, it's important to note that dropping a hard drive can cause physical damage to the disk platters or other components, which may make data recovery impossible. Therefore, it's important to take caution and avoid doing anything that could further damage the hard drive.

I recommend reading the following blogs for more information on recovering data from damaged hard drives:

What To Do When Your External Hard Drive Fails

How to Recover Data From a Dead Hard Drive

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If the data is critical then just send it out for recovery.

Otherwise, you can try to fix it yourself.

Start by acquiring the exact same make and model hard drive in good working condition.

You will then need to open the bad drive and determine what is broken. You can harvest parts from the new drive to repair the broken one.

You may need to swap the platters from the old drive to a new drive.

There is a lot of information on how to do this but below is an example of the sort of work you are looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZx-tU1_...

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