Hello, my external harddrive (Verbatim, 500GB USB/FW800) stopped working. When connected the blue LED lights up. After 3 sec it goes into flash mode. The HHD makes a clicking sound. The MAC Hard disc manager cannot see the external drive. If swapped cases for the external drive - same result. As there is important data on the drive I hope to be able to find a way to rescue the drive. Any idea is welcome. Many thanks

Does the 500GB Verbatim Hard Drive play on your computer?

Hard drives are fragile, and if they fall sometimes you get lucky and other times no. The only solution is to bring it to a computer store in hopes they can extract your files.

An external storage-device has four major components:

* the USB cable

* the power-adapter

* the disk-drive inside the enclosure

* the USB-to-disk-drive adapter inside the enclosure.

One of these components has failed.

Try a different USB cable.

Try connecting to a different USB port on your computer.

Try connecting to a USB port on a different computer.

Take a "multi-meter" and measure both the voltage and amperage output from the AC adapter, and compare with the specifications on the label on the adapter.

Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and then connect it as a "slave" disk-drive in a desktop computer, to see if it works at all.

Purchase a new, compatible, disk-drive, and install it in the enclosure, to "revive" your external storage device.

Get the part-number and serial-number from the label on your disk-drive, and access the manufacturer's web-site, and use "check warranty status", to see if they will replace the device, at minimal cost to you.

There exist commercial "data recovery" services that can try to repair your device, just long-enough to rescue and copy your files.
For example, see: https://services.seagate.com/index.aspx?lng=en-US for a "no data - no charge guarantee".

it might have been dropped, if so it could have bent the little read pin inside causing it to not be able to function correctly, those little harddrives cant take a very big hit

try testing connection of port from usb and firewire port. it not working we need to check for possible board controller swapping if available.

Hello.
It sounds like you might have a problem with the power supply.
I have seen MANY external hard drives with failing power supplies. Take it to the store you purchased it from for a check up, it should still be under warrantee if its only 3 months old.
Good Luck!

Shut your computer down. Disconnect you external hardrive. Power up your computer again. Power up the Verbatim and then connect to a USB port. You should hear a very quiet 'ping'.

Go to My Computer, and the Verbatim should be showing as one of your drives (probably Drive D). You should be able to open it from there.

Make sure that you have a Desk Top Icon for opening the hardrive, it makes it so much easier. Hope this helps

Youve damadged the harddrive, is the harddrive spinning or making any noise?

The tones in repetition sound could be a defective harddrive. I've had that happen once on an internal harddrive...

That model doesn't have an external power supply port.