Why would an external hard drive stop working without any apparent reason?

Question

I have a 500GB external hard drive which has just stopped working and most probably I have lost all my data. It never fell nor was dropped. I was simply accessing a pictures folder with ACDSee when it just stopped working. Bought it about a year ago. It says "Rock Mobile Disk" on it's container, while the actual hard drive is manufactured by Western Digital. I have tried many data recovery software programs none have been able to even start to recover. I have been getting I/O error in sector 0. If it's mechanical problem is there anyway I could fix it?

Answer 1

Its a piece of c**p maybe ?

Is it a maxtor or a western digital.....?

Even seagate external hard drives are c**p, because they use AS drives instead of ES\NS (the enterprise line drives which are more expensive and have a better build quality)...

Rock....o yeah....that's c**p....

Its gonna cost you $500 on the cheap.....if you were to get it done from me. I would only charge you If I could get data back though, estimates are free of-course. For an extra $250 you would get a seagate ns drive, coolmax enclosure and a lacie power supply that has been rebuilt (because the origional PSU cant handle a drive of that capacity.)

Anywhere else, you would start at $1000 or $1500 for such a service....

Answer 2

If the unit is out of warantee, i would suggest the following.

To test drive and get data...   Take drive out of enclosure and install in a spare bay in a desktop computer. This will allow windows or advanced diagnostic software to access and repair the data. This will work if the drive is OK, and if the USB enclosure electronics are DUFF.  You could take to a repair shop and do a cheap test on the disk, they may even backup to DVD.

To Fix ... Remove the drive, and request a RMA from the drive manufacturer. All information can be obtained from the manufacturer website using the drive serial numbers. Most manufacturers have 3 to 5 year warrantees and so this will get it working again, but will not get your data back.

Answer 3

I/O error in sector 0 usually means that the MBR is thrashed.

If there is a bad sector 0 then the drive is probably going to remain directly inaccessible. You might be lucky and find that the mbr is simply corrupted. If your computer recognizes your drive (ie. if the drive is listed under disk management and/or in you device manager) but the drive shows nothing but unallocated space then this is most likely the problem.To fix it you need specialized soft like http://www.ptdd.com/mbr.htm or http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm... - what i use.

If the first sector is actually bad due to a surface defect and this is reported with the manufacturer's utility then you are into recovery of the data from a drive that will remain inaccessible by normal means = a lot of money.

Answer 4

1. The onboard electronics died. Shockingly common on generics.

2. The wall wart failed. It happens.

3. The drive's own electronics or mechanism failed. It happens from time to time, even without trauma. Many of these drives have poor ventilation and thus get unduly hot.

If it's mechanical, your only option is to spend about a thousand dollars with Ontrak in a clean lab. No guarantees, but it might work.

If it's a problem with the enclosure's electronics, the drive will operate when mounted in a PC. I suggest you try this first.