How to recover data from physically damaged external hard disk?

What causes physical damage to external hard drives?

External hard drives can become physically damaged due to a variety of causes including:

• Dropping the hard drive. If an external hard drive is dropped, especially while powered on and/or with the disk spinning, it can cause damage to internal components.
• Exposing the hard drive to moisture. Getting an external hard drive wet, even briefly, can short circuit internal components and cause permanent damage.
• Crushing the hard drive. External hard drives have sensitive moving parts inside. Applying heavy weight or force can damage or displace internal plates and arms.
• Shock/vibration. Vibration during operation or a high shock, such as due to an impact, can damage internal components and mechanisms.
• Extreme temperature. Exposing external hard drives to extreme cold or heat outside of safe operation parameters can potentially damage components.
• Opening the chassis. Physically opening the external drive chassis exposes sensitive internal parts to damage from dust or static electricity.
• Power surge. Electrical spikes coming through power or data connections can fry circuits and control boards.

Proper care should be taken to avoid physically damaging external hard drives. Nonetheless, accidents happen and drives sustain impacts, liquid spills, drops, and other traumatic events that can result in physical damage.

Signs of physical damage to external hard drive

There are a number of signs that may indicate an external hard drive has become physically damaged:

• Visible dents, cracks, broken plastic – Obvious external signs of drop or crush damage.
• Loose parts – If you hear rattling when shaking the drive, internal parts may have broken loose.
• Burnt smell – An electrical short can cause burning of internal components.
• Drives not spinning up -Motors may be seized or internal PCB damaged.
• Scrambled data – Circuit damage can corrupt data transfer.
• Strange new sounds – Clicking, grinding, buzzing may indicate drive heads or motors are damaged.
• Filesystem not recognized – Hard drive controllers can become corrupt or damaged.
• Error messages – The drive may show ‘read/write’ or ‘input/output’ errors.
• Failure to mount – External drive does not mount or connect via USB.

Any signs of physical damage greatly increase the chances of catastrophic drive failure. The drive should be disconnected immediately to prevent further damage.

First steps after physical damage to external hard drive

If an external hard drive sustains physical damage, quick action can improve the chances of recovering the data intact:

1. Stop using the drive immediately. Disconnect the drive from the computer and from power source.
2. Do not attempt to boot from the drive or run disk repair utilities on it.
3. visually inspect connections and chassis for any signs of liquid, loose parts, or breach.
4. Allow the drive to dry completely if moisture exposure occurred.
5. Determine if specialist data recovery is required based on symptoms.
6. Research credible data recovery companies if DIY is not feasible.

Avoid shaking or moving the drive around excessively. Seek professional assistance if there is critical data that absolutely cannot be lost or drive failure is highly likely.

Can physically damaged hard drives be repaired?

In some cases it may be possible to repair the physical damage to an external hard drive. However, this depends entirely on the nature and extent of the damage sustained.

Factors that determine repairability include:

• Accessibility – The drive chassis will need opened to inspect internals.
• Component cost – Is donor PCB or other parts affordable and available?
• Time requirements – Complex repairs could take days for proper diagnosis.
• Mechanical failure – Repair is limited if motors or platters are seized up.
• Specialist skills – Circuit board soldering and drive alignment expertise.
• Tools – Specialized tools may be required for drive repairs.

For simpler fixes, such as a damaged USB connector or firmware issue, repair may be fairly straightforward. However, for mechanical or electronic component failures, repair feasibility declines. Repair costs may exceed the value of the drive itself.

Can you recover data from physically damaged external drive?

It is often possible to recover data from a physically damaged drive, but outcomes depend on the severity and type of damage:

• Visible external damage – Casing damage unlikely to impact data recovery if components intact.
• Drops/shock – Recovery possible unless heads/platters are damaged.
• Liquid spill – Good chance of recovery if electronics dried thoroughly first.
• Heads/motors stuck – Low chance of recovery if mechanical components not functioning.
• Electrical damage – Varies based on whether components or PCB circuits damaged.
• Scratched platters – Heads may be able to read around damaged areas if platters still spin.

The only cases with a poor chance of data recovery are when platters become seized up or suffer physical scratches, or electronic components involved in reading/writing get fried. In all other cases of physical damage, professionals are often able to recover some or all of the data through specialized techniques.

How to recover data from physically damaged external hard drive?

Here are the typical steps used by data recovery experts to attempt recovering data from a physically damaged external hard drive:

1. Open drive in clean room environment to avoid dust contamination.
2. Remove drive platters and mount in recovery system.
3. Image usable sectors of drive through specialized software/hardware.
4. Correct read errors using customized algorithms and mapping.
5. Rebuild file system structure based on drive metadata.
6. Export imaged data with folder structures intact.

If drive failure is detected, a specialized disk imager is connected to directly access the SATA interface and read raw sectors from the disk platters. This avoids going through a damaged filesystem or controller. The sector data is then rebuilt into files.

Mechanical repairs may be attempted first in cases of stuck spindle motors or crushed platters to get the drive functioning again. Anti-static precautions are taken when opening drives to prevent further PCB damage.

DIY data recovery from physically damaged external hard drive

Data recovery from a physically damaged external drive is a tricky process requiring technical skills and special software. However, these DIY steps may work in some cases:

1. Connect drive to another PC via SATA instead of USB.
2. Scan drive with data recovery software like Recuva, Photorec or Testdisk.
3. If scanning fails, image remaining readable sectors with ddrescue tool.
4. Mount image in another system or VM as a virtual drive.
5. Attempt file extraction with deep scanning recovery tools.
6. Repair MOV/MP4 video files with recovery programs.

DIY recovery has decent success if damage is minor like a MOV header error or partition table issue. However, if platters have physical damage or mechanical failure, chances of DIY recovery are extremely slim. Professional help should be sought at that point for any critical data.

Choosing right professional data recovery service

Not all data recovery companies have expertise in physically damaged drives. To pick a reputable service for drive recovery:

• Look for years of experience specifically with physical data recovery.
• Inquire about their technician qualifications and clean room facilities.
• Avoid firms advertising unusually low prices (which may indicate lack of capabilities).
• Read reviews and complaints online about their services.
• Understand the costs – physical recovery starts around $300+ and goes up from there.
• Get a firm quote before agreeing to service.

Top professional data recovery firms like Seagate Recovery Services, Gillware and DriveSavers have sophisticated tools and class 100 ISO 5 clean rooms to safely repair drives and recover data. The high costs reflect the investment needed in specialist skills, tools, facilities and labour intensive processes.

When is professional recovery absolutely required?

In these cases of severe external hard drive failure, professional data recovery is absolutely required:

• Platters have visible physical scratches or damage.
• Read/write heads have failed mechanical integrity tests.
• Motor spindle is not spinning at all.
• Burnt circuit board smell indicating electrical failure.
• Firmware corruption leading to input/output errors.
• Drive makes unstable buzzing/grinding noises.

Without a 100% fully functioning mechanical drive and electronics, DIY options will not be able to read any meaningful data. The drive will need opened in a specialized clean room and platter data extracted using custom repair tools not available to the public. Expect costs to easily exceed $1000+ in these scenarios depending on the drive capacity.

When can you avoid professional recovery?

These are cases of external hard drive failure where professional recovery services may be avoided completely:

• Drive not detected due to minor USB/firewire/thunderbolt enclosure failures.
• Partition structures are corrupted or deleted.
• Virus/malware infection of boot records or filesystem.
• Accidental reformats of partitions or initialization.

If the physical hard drive hardware is still functioning properly internally, then an external adapter or controller can often grant access to recover data using DIY methods. Software recovery tools can salvage partitions and data in these non-physical hard drive failure cases.

How to avoid need for physical data recovery

Some best practices to avoid the risks of physical hard drive damage leading to costly data recovery:

• Handle drives gently, don’t drop them.
• Keep drives away from moisture and liquids.
• Don’t store drives in very hot or cold environments.
• Avoid exposing drives to magnets or high static electricity.
• Ensure hard drives are safely shock mounted in computers.
• Only use high quality surge protectors for external drives.
• Have newer external drives with more physical robustness.
• Always eject and disconnect drives properly when not in use.
• Maintain backups of critical data offshore or in cloud.

Carefully handling external hard drives provides protection against accidental damage. But having a solid independent backup system is the best insurance policy against physical data loss scenarios. Backups grant the freedom to attempt DIY repairs or recovery without fear.

Key takeaways on damaged external hard drive data recovery

To summarize key learnings on salvaging data from physically damaged external hard drives:

• Stop using a damaged drive immediately and seek professional diagnosis if failure is suspected.
• Repairing the physical drive is often unrealistic unless damage is very minor.
• Data recovery is possible unless platters/heads have catastrophic physical damage.
• DIY recovery only works for very simple cases or partial data retrieval.
• For mechanical/electrical failures, find a specialist data recovery firm with reputation and capabilities.
• Expect high costs for professional recovery from severe physical damage scenarios.
• Always maintain current backups as the ultimate hedge against physical data loss.

By understanding the risks, costs, diy tools and professional capabilities related to physical hard drive damage, the best response plan can be put in place to safeguard data. Carefully research options before proceeding if faced with a real damaged external hard drive crisis.