Dropped my 500GB Freecom Classic during a transfer - all hope lost?

Doesnt click, it just gives a regular and quiet buzz sound every 2 seconds, as if its trying to start up. Any suggestions on what i should try? I'm pretty sure the warranty is up

Does the freezer method work on externals?

Presumably if you just whip it out of the enclosure, freeze it and whack it back into the enclosure it's no different.

As this is an external drive there might be a chance that it is the caddys interface board that is the problem, external drive are just normal internal drives in a caddy with an interface board to convert them to USB/Firewire/Esata etc.

If you can open it up and remove the drive and try that to see if it works you may get lucky maybe not, only try this if it is out of warranty or you are not bothered about the warranty(if it stll has one).

Be warned some external caddys are tricky to open due to all the clips and no screws.

im really tempted to open it up, pretty certain i dont have warranty, will have to get my hands on a sata usb adapter, wish me luck!

If the disk is damaged (as opposed to a loose connector in the caddy) a data recovery specialist may be able to get it back. BUT if it involves opening the disk mechanism to do so, you are looking at a bill a large bill. (Standard recovery tends to be £300 upwards, recovery from a damaged disk can double or triple that - easily).

i once dropped an enclosure that was running and rather than the disk breaking it was the usb to ide adapter that broke. the drive it self was fine. it might be worth testing the drive in another machine

yep, opened it up no problem, just got to get myself a usb -> sata adaptor for testing

If you've got a desktop, use the internal SATA ports?

nope, no desktop

i'll have to use a friend's