Read this before you do anything else
Don't power it on to see if it survived. That test is the risk.
The instinct after a drop is to plug it in and check. On a drive with spinning platters, that check is the most dangerous single action available: if the heads were displaced or the mechanics knocked out of alignment, powering on drives them across the surface holding your files. A drive that was survivable while switched off becomes a head-crash while you watch the progress bar. Whether it was running at the moment of impact matters enormously, and either way the answer comes from inspection, not from another attempt.
Emergency
Dropped external hard drive
If your external hard drive has been dropped, the most useful thing on this page is above this paragraph, and it is free. What follows is what the fault usually turns out to be, how recoverable this class of failure is, and what it would cost, including the cases we would tell you to take elsewhere.
What this usually turns out to be
Whether this matters at all comes down to one thing: was it running. A hard drive that is powered off has its heads parked away from the platter and can survive an impact many times greater than one that is spinning, which is why the same fall produces a shrug or a disaster depending on the moment. Spinning at impact, the heads can strike the surface and score it. Parked, the usual worst case is a bent enclosure or a broken USB connector, and the drive inside is fine. The plastic shell does absorb some of the shock, which works in your favour here.
A portable external is a normal drive inside a plastic shell with a USB bridge board. The bridge fails far more often than the drive does, which is why a dead external is better news than a dead internal.
Head assembly displaced or damaged
The likeliest serious outcome when a drive is dropped while running. Powering on afterwards is what turns it into surface damage.
Platter damage from head contact at impact
Where the heads struck the surface during the fall, leaving scoring already present before any power-up.
Nothing at allbetter news
Drives are designed to survive substantial shock while parked and idle. A drop onto carpet while switched off very often does no damage whatsoever.
Cracked solder joint or connector damagebetter news
Common on USB sticks and phones, where the impact is taken by the connector rather than any storage. The memory itself is usually intact.
What to check first on an external hard drive
- Establish whether it was connected and running when it fell, which is the whole diagnosis.
- If it was not running, connect it once and listen carefully during spin-up. A normal spin-up and mount means you are done.
- If it was running, listen for any clicking or grinding on that single attempt, and if you hear either, disconnect immediately.
What not to do
Do not power it repeatedly to check whether it is recovering. If the heads were displaced by the impact, every start is another pass across the surface, and a drive that would have been recoverable after one attempt often is not after ten.
How recoverable this is
Governed almost entirely by one question: was it running when it fell? A parked, powered-off drive dropped a short distance frequently survives with nothing wrong at all. A drive dropped while spinning is the harder case, and it gets harder every time it is powered on afterwards. Flash devices and phones fare much better: with no moving parts, a drop usually damages the connector or the board rather than the storage.
What moves it, for your device specifically:
- Whether the device was powered on and spinning at the moment of impact
- Whether the impact displaced the heads or damaged the platter surface
- How many times it has been powered on since
We will not give you a percentage for your device, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can know what is recoverable until the media has been imaged and read. What is above describes this class of failure; your drive gets its own answer after an assessment, in writing, at no cost.
What it costs
Assessed free, then referred at no charge
Cleanroom mechanical work
Clicking, seized or head-crashed drives need internal mechanical work in a controlled environment. We don't have one, so we assess it, tell you what we found in writing, and refer it on. That referral costs you nothing here.
Nothing is charged until you have seen a fixed quote for your actual device and agreed to it, and the assessment that produces it is free.
Other faults on an external hard drive
- External hard drive clicking
- External hard drive beeping
- External hard drive grinding
- External hard drive won't spin up
- External hard drive not showing up
- External hard drive shows up but won't open
- Water damaged external hard drive
- Formatted external hard drive by mistake
- Deleted files from external hard drive
Dropped or knocked on other devices
Next step
Tell us what failed.
Free assessment. Fixed quote before recovery starts. No recovery, no fee. Sydney drop-off or Australia-wide by tracked post.