Hey there, i not long ago brought a WD 500gb external hard drive

When i plug it into my laptop via USB the green light on the front of it flashes instead of turning continous green and the drive does not come up on the laptop anymore.

So (as i have alot of stuff i want on there) is there any way or ideas of how i could fix the drive or atleast save my stuff.

I think the problem started when i used the power cord from my laptop instead of the one for my external =/ but that shouldnt matter right?

Anyway! Thanks alot for helping me out, Dean

Hi with the description you've given I'd say the wrong power source being plugged in to the drive has damaged it. The best thing to do would be to remove the drive from the enclosure and plug it into a desktop or a new external enclosure to recover your data if the disk has not been damaged.

Ok thanks!

Why would that damage it though? =/

Ok so if i take it out the shell what would i need to buy to try run it off my laptop again? (Im not that great with taking things apart etc with pc's)

With that said where can i buy a new external enclosure from? I dont get how buying a new case would help recover the data (presuming its not damaged)

Would it be posble to buy a replacement external, then pay someone to try transfer over the data? Or not... just its still within waranty so i could then claim back as a faulty item or have it repaired or wont that work =/

Dean

You can have a data recovery company get the data off. That can cost close to $500+(u.s.). Make sure you try it on another computer first. The power cord has a + and -. Some cords have this on the inside of the tip or on the outside. If you have a cord that is positive on the outside and you plug it into your HDD which requires negetive on the outside it can definately fry it!


PS:
I recently unplugged my external drive while it was optimized for performance, which caused all data to be unreadable. So, don't ever do that.

EDIT:
I don't think an improper power cord would cause this. The same electricity passes through most all wires(if they aren't too small). However, if you had some sort of power coverter(black rectangular box) on the power cord, that would absolutely cause problems if it was feeding the wrong current/voltage
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WAY WRONG (I was thinking of desktop power cords)

No yeah it was just a laptop charger which has a black box but no + or - ends (only one side of the box has a lead that can be disconnected)

So if it was a different voltage then is there anyway to fix my external do you reckon?

Luckily the more important stuff was on the other external but i still lost 500gb of stuff so its abit annoying still =/

You used the wrong power cord so this then means you connected the external hard drive to a diffrent wattage of power supply.This in turn has caused damage to the external case power supply and proberly damage to the hard drive.

I would not use this external case for another hard drive and I would try and fit this hard drive to another external case(a new one) and try and recover the data.

If you put in another hard drive into this external case the case could damage the new hard drive and any others you place in there.

As the light still flashes on and off there maybe some hope in recovering the data of this hard drive.

Buy either an external case or the external USB convert leads.

Ok i think i understand now...

So if i buy a new external case enclosure thing... are they all a standard size etc or would i need a specific one? Any that you can recommend or where to get them?

What do you mean by external USB convert leads? =/

Do you reckon paying out £20 or so for the new casing is worth it or would you just buy a new external? lol

Write back, Dean