Lightning vs. External

H

Hyphen

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Jul 26, 2009
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Last night a very harsh and random lightning strike did 2 things:
1.) I heard an extremely loud pop, which I thought was my ethernet port (cable runs underneath the house and to the router in another room) - perhaps it was my ethernet port, but the port on my end is fine, the port at the router's end was killed
2.) My Western Digital 1TB external hard drive which has literally thousands of dollars worth of data and other property (I work online) is now not functioning. The LCD light is on, but the drive will not show up in My Computer. I've unplugged and replugged every cord, from the AC adapter to the USB connecting it. Sometimes when I disconnect and reconnect, I get a tray icon stating that a USB device has malfunctioned and is not recognized.

Please tell me my drive was not killed? How can I go about fixing this?
 
Hyphen said:
2.) My Western Digital 1TB external hard drive which has literally thousands of dollars worth of data and other property (I work online) is now not functioning. The LCD light is on, but the drive will not show up in My Computer. I've unplugged and replugged every cord, from the AC adapter to the USB connecting it. Sometimes when I disconnect and reconnect, I get a tray icon stating that a USB device has malfunctioned and is not recognized.

Please tell me my drive was not killed? How can I go about fixing this?
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http://www.myharddrivedied.com/ or one of the various other data recovery firms. Just be glad that's all you lost, lightning strikes have a tendency to blow out tons of random stuff and leave stuff that you would think would be blown out just fine.

Its like that either sata/usb controller died in which case you might be able to hook it directly to a sata port and get it to work, or the controller board on the drive itself is fried in which case, you need someone who can replace it correctly, or both.
 
Would it even be worth a shot or possible that maybe the USB/firewire cable connecting the drive to the computer went bad and I could try replacing that first? I don't know if that makes sense because when I unplug this wire, my drive powers down, so it looks as if the drive works, but then again it's also looking as if the USB circuit works considering the LCD on the drive goes on and off when I plug and unplug it.
 
Would it even be worth a shot or possible that maybe the USB/firewire cable connecting the drive to the computer went bad and I could try replacing that first?
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I would. It's probably not the problem but you could try.

To do any further troubleshooting the drive will need to be removed from the case which will void your warranty but that's probably the least of your worries.

The drive needs to be connected directly to your motherboard to attempt any recovery.

A professional recovery place will probably start at 500.00 and go up from there.

The more you screw with the drive the more there will be a chance that you make it worse and recovery will cost more or won't be possible.

If you know you're going to send it to a pro, don't screw with it. ;)
 
I have to ask...if the data was that valuable, why was it only stored in one location with no duplicates or backups?

I know that doesn't help you, but I'm sure this will be a lesson learned for you.
 
Have you tried to connect this drive to a different computer ?
Or even to a different USB port on the same computer ?
Can you hear the actual drive spin up inside of the USB enclosure or are you only going by the light on the front of the external enclosure when you say that the drive is actually running?
 
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