External HDD smashed..any hope of reapair?

I have a 500GB WD external hard drive and my freind tripped over the cable while it was transfering files, and the case smashed open. I brought it to the tech help desk and they said it was fried, aka they took the HDD out of the case and plugged it directly int a computer, and nothing came up in 'my computer'. Im trying it now on my comp (internally), and it just makes a on and off buzzing noise then stops. I can feel it vibrating so it seems to be on. I was going to pay $75 for a new internal HDD for my computer and wanted to know if i can pay somone to fix this one and save some money? Anyone know if, or how to see if its repairable? Are their places i can bring it to that can try and salvage it? Or should i just throw it in the trash:(

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Originally Posted by GTSRboy

I have a 500GB WD external hard drive and my freind tripped over the cable while it was transfering files, and the case smashed open. I brought it to the tech help desk and they said it was fried, aka they took the HDD out of the case and plugged it directly int a computer, and nothing came up in 'my computer'. Im trying it now on my comp (internally), and it just makes a on and off buzzing noise then stops. I can feel it vibrating so it seems to be on. I was going to pay $75 for a new internal HDD for my computer and wanted to know if i can pay somone to fix this one and save some money? Anyone know if, or how to see if its repairable? Are their places i can bring it to that can try and salvage it? Or should i just throw it in the trash:(

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Generally you don't "repair" a hard disk. Your best bet would be trying to RMA it, but I don't know if they'll take it if there is visible physical damage to it.

Stick it in a ziplock bag with no air and stick it in the freezer for about an hour. You might beable to recover some of the data but the disk is prolly fubar.

The internal drive doesnt have any visible damage, just the case sortof blew apart. I think its possible the finder fingers have been bumped out of place or somthing. Id like to look at the disc, but i dont have any tool that can get these screws lose, there an odd screw type and are on their extremly tight

Well what happens some times when a HDD is dropped the Read/Write head gets jolted over the platters. If that happened then most likely the Heads on the armature are done. If the HDD was on and spinning it may not be that bad, the spinning creates the air cushion they ride on. If it was not spinning then they may have been dragged across the the platers. That dragging will likely damage the platers and even if you can replace the Armature ( i have done a few times ), it will render the platers unreadable. You will hear a nonstop clicking if thats the case. And if its clicking just turn it off all your doing is damaging the head/platers further.

The freezing trick does work from time to time. but you need a HDD copy program to copy that drive as fast as you can. There may still be hope if you can plug the drive in and see it show up in Windows. The Armature rides on a Voice Coil, it will scan till it finds the boot sector.

If the Information your wanting to recover is important then there are places that can do it for a Fee. They have the right equipment to extract the platers and read them.

Linky

And yes it is $EXPENSIVE$