Symptom first
External drive symptoms, and how long each gives you. Some of these can wait a week. The ones with a sound cannot wait another power-on.
An external hard drive tells you what has gone wrong, if you know how to listen: a click is the heads, a beep is a motor that cannot turn, silence is power, and a message on screen asking you to format is a file system the computer cannot read on a drive that may be perfectly well. Find yours below. Whatever it turns out to be, the first look is free, one external drive is £300 + VAT fixed in writing, and on most jobs no data means no bill.
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It has stopped, or it is there but wrong.
Rather begin with the kind of drive →It has stopped
Clicking or tickingThe heads have failed or cannot find their way. Every power-on scratches. Unplug it now→Beeping or buzzingThe motor is trying to turn against heads stuck to the platter. Do not tap, freeze or open it→Not spinning, no lightPower: the adapter, the lead, the board's regulator, or a seized spindle. Often the easy one→Not showing up or not recognisedUSB device not recognised, nothing in Disk Management: the bridge, the firmware, or weak heads→Dropped or knockedRunning or switched off makes all the difference. Do not plug it in to see→Water, fire or a surgeBag it as it is; do not dry it with heat; do not power it→It is there, but wrong
Asks to format, or not readableYou need to format the disk · the disk you inserted was not readable. Say no; the files are there→I/O device error and CRCData error (cyclic redundancy check) and the request could not be performed: bad sectors, or worse→Slow, freezing, disconnectingWeak heads and bad sectors on a drive that is nearly done. Image it now, once→Deleted or formattedNothing is gone until something new is written over it. Stop using the drive→Broken port or bridge boardA snapped Micro-B socket, a dead bridge, a wrong charger. The drive is usually fine→Encrypted or password-lockedWD hardware encryption, WD Security, BitLocker To Go, FileVault. We recover the drive; you hold the key→The two rules that cover every symptom.
If it makes a noise, unplug it. A clicking, ticking or beeping external drive has a mechanical fault, and the heads that read your files are a fraction of a millimetre from the platters that hold them. Every power-on is another pass of a failed head across a surface it can score. A drive that clicked once and went quiet has parked, not recovered.
If the screen offers to fix it, say no. Initialise, Format, Repair, First Aid and chkdsk all write to the drive. On a drive with a damaged file system that writing can make the damage permanent; on a drive with weak heads it is thousands of extra reads of the weakest surface. Recovery software has its place, which is a healthy drive with a damaged file system, and nowhere else. Every page above says the same thing in its own way, because it is the thing that most decides how a job turns out.
The questions that come up first.
Can data be recovered from a dead external hard drive?
Usually. Most dead external drives have failed at the heads, the board or the firmware, with the platters intact. The heads are replaced, the board repaired or carried, the firmware corrected, and the drive read once. The free look tells you what is there before any charge.
How quickly do I need to act?
For a drive making a noise, before the next power-on. For a drive that has been formatted or had files deleted, before anything is written to it. For everything else, promptly; days rather than hours, but do not keep using it.
Will recovery software work?
Only on a healthy drive with a damaged file system. It cannot see a drive the computer cannot see, and on a drive with weak heads every scan makes things worse.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one external drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work. Two-bay sets from £500 + VAT.
Not on the list?
Describe it on the form: what the screen says, what it sounds like, what happened before. An engineer places it faster than any menu, and asking is free.