External drive not seen - best way forward?

Hi

I've had a few external USB drives die on me lately. One of them wasn't fully backed-up, so I'm looking for the best way to try and recover the data. The disk is a 5TB Seagate Backup-plus (2.5 inch) USB3-connected drive. The data on it isn't really all _that_ important (I certainly don't want to spend hundreds of dollars having it professionally recovered), but as I have nothing to lose (I am just going to throw it in the trash anyway), what is the best way of trying to recover the data, please?

Windows plays a "dum-dubby-dum" sound when it is plugged into a USB port (same as when other PnP devices are plugged into a USB port). But after that, nada. (Actually, Windows gives a "USB Device not recognised" toaster-notification). It is not seen in 'This PC' or Disk Management. It doesn't seem to be spinning. There is a light on the case which is solid-on. I have tried it in several PCs.

It initially died when I was verifying a Macrium backup (of my PC's C: drive) that I had put on it. It started giving cyclic redundancy checks, then just couldn't be seen when it was plugged-in again. There were a few 'tinkling' noises later when it span, which I understand to be a bad sign.

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I have a new disk arriving in the mail today to take the data, so just want to know I'm doing the right thing before I start. So far, I'm looking at

How to recover files from a dead external drive | PCWorld
How to Fix 'Hard Drive Not Showing Up' in Windows [Solved]
Recover Data From External Hard Drive That Isn’t Detected

The people recommending the tools are the manufacturers of the tools, so.... is that the best advice?

I've also heard that using linux might help. Is that right ? If so, how?
I also saw a youtube video, where the guy just opened the case and manually swung the (stuck) arm back-to-base and everything was fine and dandy.

I got me a big hammer and a chisel and I'm a-ready to do me some fixin'...

Any pointers? Thanks


p.s. I dont have a desktop PC to mount the physical disk in, only laptops. Win 10 Home.

Hi, your first port of call is to see if you can read any SMART params from it. E.g. Hard Disk Sentinel (excellent functional trial) or Crystal Diskinfo (basic, free).

There are of course the electronics- and there's the drive. There's an outside chance that a bit of excavation (perhaps with something more delicate than a pickaxe) might let you remove the drive and try that alone if there's a way of connecting it.

But it simply sounds as if it has indeed failed.

There are things you can do or make from parts of dead drives (youtube).

I generally prefer Hitachi or Toshiba drives- figures on BackBlaze also look better on those. And WD had that strange report of hacking and resetting...

I've just had a similar problem with a 4TB Seagate backup Plus, took 15 minutes to do a macrium backup that normally takes about 4 minutes. Initially it came up red on HDS with an extremely large number of bad sectors and a life expectancy of 14 days! failed also on Crystal and failed Smart on Seatools after which it ceased to do anything. Not critical as I keep double backups no need to recover the data, so I removed it from the case to test it, it's thin metal and bends easily so careful if you want to salvage the case.
There is a USB to SATA adapter which the drive is plugged in to, so it can be removed and plugged into a PC or another enclosure for testing.
In my case I tested the USB to SATA Adapter first by plugging an SSD I had spare into it and the adapter is working fine, The original drive however still faulty when attached to the PC and after a few minutes completely stopped spinning and became undetectable, so I'm trashing it. The USB to SATA adapter will come in handy though for testing drives! or if the case isn't damaged a replacement drive or SSD could be fitted in the case. I've just got another 4TB backup drive, this time a 3.5 one with a PSU same as my other backup drive and restored the data from my main backup drive.

If you are lucky it will be the USB adapter that's failed so probably worth extracting the drive to test it.

The USB adapter is unlikely to be causing metallic noises, that's more like the head is scraping across the surface of the disk platter and probably causing a large amount of unrepairable damage.
I agree with Megahertz, it's more than likely terminal and beyond help.

Extremely unlikely you would be able to get that USB adapter unless some one is selling bits of Seagate external drives on eBay, however there are quite a lot adapters and enclosures on Amazon and elsewhere that would work, however in this case I would save your money or put it towards a replacement.

I wouldn't bother messing with it, you'd have to open up the drive and unless you know what your doing will probably kill it off completely.

The second one also works with old IDE drives and has extra electronics built in to deal with the two formats, either will do however unless you have very old IDE drives lying around you don't need extra function, the first one is perfectly adequate.
There is one on Amazon for £5.98 USB 3.0 To SATA 22 Pin 2.5 Inch Hard Disk Drive SSD Adapter Connector Lead Cable SATA III By Multibao : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Beware not to accidently knock these external drives whilst they are running. I did so and the drive was toast.