Failed External Harddrive

[poligone]

I have a WD Essential Book 250GB external hard drive which just left warranty. After sitting for 6 months not hooked up to a computer or outlet, I needed some data and the drive will not start. There is no light and no evidence of the drive powering on. 6 months ago the drive was barely used, and it was completely normal. The power cords work for my other hard drive(it is not a faulty USB or power cord). Data recovery quotes are running 500-2800(crazy for a home hard drive). My question is, how is it best to proceed with salvage...open the hard drive and stick the drive part in a new enclosure, or place it in a desktop computer(I have a Dell XPS 700 and am not sure if it has a slot for a second hard drive but I believe it does)...if the answer is to place it in my Dell, will the external hard drive automatically know it is a slave or do I have to set it up in advance. Any help would be most appreciated as I have not found anyone with my problem on the internet.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: poligone
.open the hard drive and stick the drive part in a new enclosure, or place it in a desktop computer

Either.

But if you choose to install it as an internal drive, remember to remove the jumper from the "Master" pins and place it on the "Slave" pins (possibly "Cable Select", but then both drives' jumpers have to be on Cable Select).

If you put it in another enclosure, you obviously don't have to do that, but check if the jumper is in the "Master" position.

Good luck!