WD External (My Book) broken?

[ShatteredFlame]

So I don't know what caused this. The hard drive is located well in my desk where nothing can possibly hit it, but yesterday all of a sudden it started freezing up, getting this skipping sound. I tried shutting it off, but I think that just made the problem permanent. Now everytime I start it up the same skipping sound occurs and none of my computers can even recognize it.

It think it's done. But, is there any hope for it?

[Kariudo]

Might be that the HDD inside it is dying. If you aren't concerned with warranties, you might try opening up the external's housing to pull out the drive. Then, you can try hooking it up to your computer directly (provided you have a spare IDE or SATA cable and a spare plug from your PSU to power the drive).

If that doesn't work, you can try sticking the drive in the freezer overnight (longer is better) and then try hooking it up inside your computer again. Probably a good idea to stick it in a ziplock bag with a few sheets of paper towel (to try to fight the condensation that will occur) both when it goes into the freezer and when you hook it up again.

The freezer trick usually gives you about an hour at most, so if it comes to that...work fast. You might be able to do the freezer trick a few times (maybe).

[ShatteredFlame]

Yeah, the problem is that I am using a very old computer (Dell Dimension 3000) and from what I have heard is that it doesn't have a SATA slot. I took the drive out of the case, didn't do anything. I forgot to mention that when it turns on, I am unable to shut it off by simply pushing the button. I have to unplug the power source to shut it off. Even when the case is off, pushing the button cannot turn the drive off.

I'll try the freezer thing tonight...

[Enigma]

Can you use the WD Smartware to turn it off without having to push the button, if you never tried.

[ShatteredFlame]

Nope, my computer can't detect the drive.

[ShatteredFlame]

I couldn't get the freezer thing to work. So just making sure but as far as I know a Dell Dimension 3000, a Dell Inspiron 1525, or a Dell Ispiron B130. None of these contain a SATA slot?

[Kariudo]

The Inspiron 1525 may have a sata drive. I believe that the SATA connectors for laptops and desktops are the same, but you may need a sata data cable and sata female-female power cable to hook it up.

Alternatively for power, you can power the drive from your desktop (not sure if the laptop disables the data cable if it isn't also powered from the laptop).

Since you'll have to disconnect your laptop's hard drive to try this, you'll want to make a live cd or live usb with some linux distribution so you can use it as a temporary OS (probably Ubuntu if you're not familiar with linux.)