Hard Drive Help

[MorHavoc]

Not sure if this is the place for this, feel free to move or delete mods.

I have an external hard drive that's having a bit of trouble. I BELIEVE the motor is shot, but the hard drive itself may have crashed. All I know for sure is that when I plug it in, I don't hear the motor whirring like I normally do (if I do, it's faint). Windows does not recognize that I've connected it 90% of the time, and when it does, it doesn't recognize the hard drive as a hard drive (I forget whether it sees it as just an unknown device or an unknown storage device).

I doubt there's anything I could do at home for this, but if you have suggestions, I'll take them. I'd prefer not to take this to a store.

 

[billb]

I BELIEVE the motor is shot, but the hard drive itself may have crashed..... I'd prefer not to take this to a store.

Motor shot/drive crashed...what's the difference? It failed.

Generally (99.9999% of the time) HDD's can not be repaired ecconomically. Have you tried unplugging/replugging all the connectors and reinstalling drivers? A store will just replace the drive, and if they can not transfer your data (ie. the drive is not working) it's gone.