# I accidentally dropped my naked 2.5" internal hard drive while it's off so is there a good chance it's already broken?



## vziera (May 3, 2019)

The HDD specs :
HGST 1TB 7200RPM 2.5", pulled off my laptop to be replaced by an SSD.
I accidentally dropped it from about 4'7 high to the ceramic floor surface while I was carrying it, pretty loud bang. And then I shook it and I could hear something moving inside while being shaken although I didn't know whether it's already like that before it fell cause I never checked. I wanted to test it on my computer but I'm too scared that it might just worsen the damage.  Do you think the chance is good that the drive has already been damaged by the fall even though it's off? How fragile are these drives to shocks? should a healthy hard drive be total silent while being shaken and the ears are very close?


PS: the sound of a moving component inside while being shaken is not very audible.


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## eidairaman1 (May 3, 2019)

Try it, if its way loud and there is drive errors then yeah damaged. Doesnt sound like its damaged to me though from what you said


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## TheMadDutchDude (May 3, 2019)

The sound you're hearing is likely just the heads moving around on the arm.

Just plug it in and see what happens.


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## Deleted member 67555 (May 3, 2019)

Aren't they rated for 6 G's?
I once dropped an old 3.5" ide drive down a long staircase and onto the ground... And I went to plug it in and it was fucked.
Maybe yours won't be... Good luck with that.


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## Wavetrex (May 3, 2019)

Impact on hard floor even from 1.5 meters is tens of G's.

"G" is a measure of acceleration (or deceleration, which is nothing else than acceleration in the opposite way)... so basically something that is suddenly stopped by a hard surface experiences massive amounts of (negative) acceleration.
It's very unlikely the poor thing survived, the tolerances for moving heads are extremely small, even a very tiny bend in material will kill it.

You may try it, you can't damage it further as it's extremely likely it's already gone.

RIP 2.5" drive.
(Hope there wasn't any important data on it...)


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## TheRagnarok (May 3, 2019)

Many times I have fixed dead hard drives by giving them a good hard knock on the floor in our IT lab.
Sometimes the heads get stuck on the platters from hard shutdown or age.
Saved users alot of headache with a dumb fix lol.
And I have dropped many a laptop drive and never had one die.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 3, 2019)

TheRagnarok said:


> Many times I have fixed dead hard drives by giving them a good hard knock on the floor in our IT lab.



Its like the days of B&W or early colour TVs, when they go on the blink then you take off your slipper and give the TV a beat down it will never forget.


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## dorsetknob (May 3, 2019)

Prepare some form of back up.
power it up.
If it clicks like a death watch beatle its probably gone like the dodo
if it runs ok  back it up then run the usual tests on it.

oh have a fire  extinguisher  on hand just in case


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## NdMk2o1o (May 3, 2019)

I'd say it's likely it's dead, though like others have said, plug it in, you can't do anymore damage to it


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## John Naylor (May 4, 2019)

Head parking feature should have prevented head / disk crash, so the big worry is dd the arrm s.ap off.  If goal is to revcover data that absolutely must be recored then send it to a recovery service.   If you wanna take a shot and see how it sounds, risking only part of the data, Id connect it to your PC w/ a HD dock w/ dock power off,  then hit the dock's power button ready to immediatly power back off it it screeches.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1B4-006X-00029


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## FordGT90Concept (May 4, 2019)

If the head was parked, they're good for 250-450 of Gs of force (pending on model) and it might be fine.  If the head wasn't parked, your mileage may vary.  If the drive was properly shutdown before it was removed from power, it should have been parked.

Just plug it in and chkdisk/fsck it.


...ceramic is very, very hard though.  Could do the math to guesstimate how many Gs it got but...can't be arsed.  Just test it because that will tell you more than math will.


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## eidairaman1 (May 4, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


> If the head was parked, they're good for 250-450 of Gs of force (pending on model) and it might be fine.  If the head wasn't parked, your mileage may vary.  If the drive was properly shutdown before it was removed from power, it should have been parked.
> 
> Just plug it in and chkdisk/fsck it.
> 
> ...



Estimate bro.
He needs to try it.

I could understand it being powered on but this case nah.


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## AsRock (May 4, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


> If the head was parked, they're good for 250-450 of Gs of force (pending on model) and it might be fine.  If the head wasn't parked, your mileage may vary.  If the drive was properly shutdown before it was removed from power, it should have been parked.
> 
> Just plug it in and chkdisk/fsck it.
> 
> ...



You sure that the G's include the impact ?.

Anyways only way tyo find out is to try and find out like others had said.

Do a scan on it with some thing like HDD sentinel see if that comes up with any thing.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 4, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> Estimate bro.





AsRock said:


> You sure that the G's include the impact ?.


https://rechneronline.de/g-acceleration/

Gs are acceleration as compared to acceleration caused by Earth's gravity: 1 g = 9.80665 m/s² = 32.17405 ft/s²

We know the height: 4'7" or 55" or 1.397m.
If we don't account for wind resistance, the maximum velocity was 13.7 m/s
End speed...is complicated.  We'll just go 0 m/s for worst case scenario.
Time is also a problem because we don't know how fast it went from 13.7 m/s to 0 m/s and this is where you can't get your answer.  Here's some calculated results for time:
0.1s = -13.97 G (okay if parked)
0.01s = -139.7 G (okay if parked)
0.001s = -1397 G (wrecked)
You see the pattern...

You can't know the time without having a high speed camera catch the sudden stop. So...what I said before remains true:

Try the drive and scan it for errors.
‬


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## vziera (May 4, 2019)

Okay thanks everybody for responding. I wish I could help with the math parameters but I guess I'm too dumb for that. No, there aint no data on it but I just wanted it for an extra storage. Especially these days that I'm broke. I mean such hard drive are worth $100 where I live 
Okay so what's the best app to test the drive with? HDD sentinel? 
What about HD tune pro?
Thanks muchly again!


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## eidairaman1 (May 4, 2019)

vziera said:


> Okay thanks everybody for responding. I wish I could help with the math parameters but I guess I'm too dumb for that. No, there aint no data on it but I just wanted it for an extra storage. Especially these days that I'm broke. I mean such hard drive are worth $100 where I live
> Okay so what's the best app to test the drive with? HDD sentinel?
> What about HD tune pro?
> Thanks muchly again!



Hitachi Disk Fitness Test.


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## vziera (May 4, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> Hitachi Disk Fitness Test.


Thanks but I could not find the download link on their website, could you help me with this, please?
Is downloading it off Softpedia recommended?


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## AsRock (May 4, 2019)

Hard Disk Sentinel will test the drive but be only able to do read only until you get your data backed up, it will also record over time as well so you can see if it stays stable.

HD tune will check the surface of the disk too.

Never tried Hitachi Fitness Test.


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## eidairaman1 (May 4, 2019)

vziera said:


> Thanks but I could not find the download link on their website, could you help me with this, please?
> Is downloading it off Softpedia recommended?



Hold on

Here it is
https://www1.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT



AsRock said:


> Hard Disk Sentinel will test the drive but be only able to do read only until you get your data backed up, it will also record over time as well so you can see if it stays stable.
> 
> HD tune will check the surface of the disk too.
> 
> Never tried Hitachi Fitness Test.



It was a Tool originally created by IBM when they owned the HDD division. Its a stringent tool, i suggest reading the manual on how to use it correctly.


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## vziera (May 4, 2019)

I will test the drive with the app made by Hitachi first since they share the same brand.
I will give an update when I can, thanks again everybody!


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## er557 (May 4, 2019)

If the drive was dropped naked, I would first cover it up to be decent...


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