Broken external HDD - not quite

[ravenstar68]

I have a Seagate passport 1TB USB 3 HDD which gave up the ghost this week,

However although the drive was not showing up as a USB device on my PC, I noted that it was still spinning up even though the light was not coming on on the drive.

So I prised the case apart and inside is a standard 2.5 inch HDD which is connected to a PCB which provides the connection between the SATA port and the USB port.

I had a spare external 2.5 inch drive enclosure - albeit with a drive that has linux mint on it (that I haven't used in a while) so I swapped the "broken" drive over, plugged in the USB cable and once again I had access to the drive.

So now I have 2 alternatives to get it going.

1.  Get a second external HDD enclosure.
2.  See if I can order a replacement PCB and re-assemble the Passport device with the new PCB

However there is another point to be taken on board.

Be wary throwing out broken external drives, they may not be as broken as you thought and dumpster divers may still be able to get at the data on them.