Problem: When your computer wakes up from sleep, USB external drives get disconnected then reconnected again causing the 'This drive wasn't ejected properly' warning message. After *properly* ejecting and plugging it back in to see if there is anything else I could do to get the files from my MAC to the hard drive, I had read up somewhere that in order to do so I have to save the data that is on the hard drive on the MAC.

Free vpn client for mac. An IT person told me to drop it the opposite way it landed on the floor.I did.that's when the clicking stopped and my laptop at least showed the icon in the devices screen. I will try what you show above and repost. Deb Sorry, we're not getting notification emails. Glitch in the system. I'd definitely question this person being IT. Did he mean it as a joke?

Ken's probably right. It's broken I've dropped my cell phone numerous times and it still works. You'd think a hard drive would be comparable.

It's not making the noise and the icon showing.have you tried reformatting? You'll lose any files you have if you do! Pat Wishing you a Happy New Year.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:14:03 +0000, debramirez wrote: I dropped my external hard drive USB plug in (WD Passport ). I cannot open it at all to access my files (lots of them that I need for work). Its icon shows up under device manager and it evven shows it is working properly. Is there anything I can do at home before I send it off via the Geek Squad for $250? I heard a horror story already that $250 turned into $1600. I cannot afford this. Two points: 1. If you dropped it, it's probably broken, and you won't be able to do anything with.

Next time, be sure you have a backup on other media of files that are important to you. If you do decide to take it somewhere for service, avoid the Geek Squad like the plague. In my opinion, and that of lots of others of us here, they, and other big box stores are terrible--the worst places to go for service. Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP since October 2003.

So This is what we know: You were using your drive (PC running Windows Vista) and while it was running you banged it (was on the edge and then it fell onto the flat side). At that point you unplugged the USB cable and then reconnected (failing to dismount the drive). Now you can't access the drive, but the device driver and the USB interface internally of the drive is responsive (drives power light is lighting). So the drive was spinning when you knocked it. And, you failed to dismount the drive correctly. We don't know if the system was still in the process of writing to the drive (where you in the process of reading or writing a file off of the external drive?) If not then the cache write back is only effected which is a minor issue.

Otherwise the file you were accessing is likely damaged. The big issue here is what was the drive doing, was the disk head arm parked or engaged? From the sounds of it it appears the arm was engaged so it was somewhere on the plater/s. So the heads likely dug into the platter ripping one or more off and damaging a part of the magnetic surface of the plater (heads crashed). It doesn't take much for this to happen. OK now what - If the data is that important you'll need to send your drive in to a data recovery service so they can disassemble the drive in a clean room to try repair the drive long enough to pull your data off (replacing the damaged heads). If you have also encrypted your data you will need to give them the application and the encryption keys so the they can decrypt the data.

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