I dropped my external hard drive

I know. It's serious. Now when I plug it in to my computer via the usb port, the computer makes the recognition sound but the hard drive doesn't show up and it's making a regular clicking noise. Apparently the only way to recover the data is by taking it into a dust free laboratory. This is a complete shocker - does anyone know if there is a way to avoid this procedure and in any event how much it should cost??

There's no way to avoid it dude, your screwed. Take better care of your things next time.

Oh im sure he ment it Anyway its most likely just the electronics in the caddy that are screwed. You could transfer the HD from the caddy its in right now to a new one. Look on ebay. There cheap there.

i opened up the outer case (but obviously didn't open up the actaul sealed drive. there was nothing irregular inside the outer case so it's definitely in the drive itself. Waht is the device you recommend looking for on ebay? Many thanks.

Firstly check the drive isnt dead by pluging it into a pc if you can then get back to me.

Andy - when i turn the hard drive on it starts to "whirr" as usual and the green light comes on. After about three or four seconds it starts to make a regular clicking noise. When i plug it into the computer the computer makes the two tone sound which it always does when a usb device is plugged in. Nothing more happens and when i check "my computer" it doesn't recognise it, it just shows details for the C and D drives etc.