External hard drive now not recognized

[kerk]

Have an older Toshiba external hard drive (HDTC605XK3A1). It has worked well for at least 10 years until yesterday. My PC is aware of the item in 'Device Manager', but states this: 'Unknown USB device (device descriptor request failed)'. .... If I unplug it, 'that' line disappears from the manager list. ...... I have rebooted with it plugged in, and have rebooted without it plugged in until after it loads, but either way produces the same result. ...... Not concerned about salvaging the drive, just concerned about transferring the data to another, but it is not recognized on my PC, or my wife's laptop.

Any suggestion are appreciated.

[Lisa_maree]

Hi Kerk,

First see if the the drive is showing in Disk Management. If the drive is shown it will have a health status and how windows is seeing the partition.
If the partition is showing as raw, and the drive is healthy then you will need to run recovery software.

You could try ReclaiMe from here https://www.reclaime.com/
This will show the files for free but costs to recover

A free option is recuva recovery software

[kerk]

Thanks Lisa. Tried 'disk management' , and no, it does not show at all.

[Lisa_maree]

Hi Again,

Can you hear the disk spinning, if not then you will need to use a sharp craft knife to cut around the edge seam of the black plastic case. Once you have the drive open there is the drive itself and a small interface board. You can unplug the drive from the interface board and plug it direct into a computer. It's just a SATA laptop drive. If the disk is still not spinning it is likely with it sitting unused the motor has jammed or the heads are stuck to the disk stopping the disks from spinning. In ether of these cases you would need to find someone who can open the drive and either free the motor or the heads. This is better done by a professional 

[kerk]

Thanks Lisa, I'm a little bit ahead of you, but was wondering the same thing, as when plugged in, there is a slight vibration that you can only feel if you pick it up, and if you put it to your ear you hear a mild hum. So, my thought was perhaps the drive is stuck.

Anyway, I have the back off and the contents out, but have not been able to remove four small phillips screws to expose the drive. They are too tight, so I am going to wait until tomorrow to see if I can find an 'extra fine' philips head tool which I can get a grip on. All I have are some that are too small to grip. It is the only way I know to be able to see if the drive is spinning or not.