External Hard Drive won't power up

[Mikepsyche]

My brother gave me his old WD 500GB external hdd a while ago.

Every so often it wouldn't be recognized, in which case I'd just unplug the power cable and plug it back in, but it would always turn on.

Then a week or two ago, the drive stopped powering on. I'd unplug and re-plug the power cable over and over again, and nothing. The drive's out of warranty, so should I take it out of its enclosure? If I do, would I just grab a SATA cable and plug it into my computer, try to have it function as an internal drive?

EDIT: It wouldn't have anything to do with the power cord, would it?

 

[Hefemeister]

Sounds like the enclosure went bad on you.

Pull it out and use is as an internal drive.
should be a sata drive so just use a standard sata connector to your motherboard.

 

[95BlackGA]

My brother gave me his old WD 500GB external hdd a while ago.

Every so often it wouldn't be recognized, in which case I'd just unplug the power cable and plug it back in, but it would always turn on.

Then a week or two ago, the drive stopped powering on. I'd unplug and re-plug the power cable over and over again, and nothing. The drive's out of warranty, so should I take it out of its enclosure? If I do, would I just grab a SATA cable and plug it into my computer, try to have it function as an internal drive?

EDIT: It wouldn't have anything to do with the power cord, would it?

Your power cord could have gone bad. I've had several cords for old monitors go bad for some reason.

Sounds like the enclosure went bad on you.

Pull it out and use is as an internal drive.
should be a sata drive so just use a standard sata connector to your motherboard.

Best choice here, as you should see better speeds from it.

 

[Luke]

like said the Enclosure most likely crapped out on you. Your best bet would be to take it out of the enclosure, and use it as an internal drive. Or if you would rather have an external, buy a new enclosure.

 

[Mikepsyche]

Cool, I hope that was the problem; I've had my eyes on a couple new externals. I think I'll just take out the WD, connect it with a SATA, and pull the data off of it. Maybe use it as a backup internal drive.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Element 1TB 3.5" Black External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

Newegg.com - Fantom Drives GD1000EU 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA Silver GreenDrive External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

Which of these looks better? I wanted an E-SATA connection, but in all actuality, I only use external drives for music, movies, etc. Which USB 2 would do fine for, right?

 

[Hefemeister]

USB 2 would be fine for you needs.
esata is nice.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

I use my external drive for movies, and honestly if you're copying across a ton of stuff, or watching 1080p movies, you'll want more than just a usb connection.
eSATA is teh win. That, or get yourself an enclosure that supports firewire.

 

[Harper]

The drive's out of warranty, so should I take it out of its enclosure?

This is one of the reasons why I stay clear of those name brand external hard drive. If it fails, you are stuck with the following choices
1. Send drive in for warranty and loose every thing
2. Send drive in for warranty and pay an arm and a leg for data recovery. I don't mind paying data recovery fees for when the drive inself is dead. However when it's the enclosure (most of the time it is), that is different story.
3. Take a chance by cracking open your drive and seeing if it's just the enclosure that has failed. However in the process you loose your warranty.

Eather way you look at it, you are screwed.

Next time, just purchase a seperate drive and enclosure. From my experience, 9 of 10 times it's the exclosure's USB interface that has died. However I have a few WD enclosures where data has just vanished

 

[Mikepsyche]

I'll think about that in the future Keyboard Cowboy. I didn't really know they sold enclosures separately, so that you could patch together your own external hard drive. That might be cheaper too...

But I looked at the WD lastnight, gonna take it out of its enclosure. But I noticed there are absolutely no screw holes, or anywhere to take the enclosure apart. I think I may have to literally take a crack at it. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Hefemeister]

look under the rubber feet and serial sticker.