External harddrive borken - what are my options?

[chrispattinson]

I have a Seagate Freeagent 750GB external HDD (USB). Last night, the magic smoke escaped, and now it smells like a GTB gone bang, and it doesnt work. I dont have the data backed up. There's quite a bit of stuff on it that I wouldn't like to lose, such as photos, work, music, some vids etc.

What are my options for getting the daa back, or is it gone?
I dont even know what is inside these things, is it just an enclosure and HDD? Could it be the enclosure that went bang?

Does anyone know any reputable companies for salvaging data?

Thanks for any help, form Chris.

[Alan1467]

PM'd

[jimmy]

Perhaps the controller board went 'poof' - you should be able to rip the thing apart and plug the hard drive itself into your computer to test it.

[Southwell]

Yeah ive never had an actual hard drive go bang, i would say it will still be recoverable in a pc if you get it out the enclosure.

[chrispattinson]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll get the hammer and chisel out later today.

[JCJC]

You can get this sort of thing:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136214

You should then be able to plug the drive into usb (works for me on windows), or an new external enclosure would not be much more expensive.