HP Simplesave External HD Stops Working (with cricket sound)

[Robert_Hsu]

I have been using this external hard drive for years and recently it stopped working completely. When it is powered on, it just keeps making cricket sounds and my laptop cannot recognize it. (I tried to connect it to a pixelbook, chromebook, and an old windows xp laptop. It used to work on all three of them by the way.) Help! What should I do?

[TheOldMan]

That would seem to indicate the drive or its enclosure has failed.  It is a hard drive in an external case.  Since it is making a noise, most likely the drive.

[Robert_Hsu]

Is it possible that the control unit is the broken part? I removed the control unit and tried to read the hard drive without it, and my laptop can kinda recognize the hard drive but apparently cannot access any data without the control unit.

[TheOldMan]

Yes, it is possible to remove the drive from the enclosure and connect it using an adapter.

I prefer to use an adapter that has its own power supply to run the drive.  This is what I am suggesting -

https://www.amazon.com/AGPtek-Drive-Adapter-Converter-External/dp/B00BIE996S/ref=pd_sbs_2/130-732774...

There are also USB 3.0 adapters but this will do the job.  Connect the drive to the adapter and power up the drive using the power supply included with the adapter.  The drive should be quiet, almost impossible to tell if it is running.  If it is making the "cricket" sounds, it is most certainly on its way to fail or has already.  Either way, connect the USB lead to a computer.  It should be recognized and become available to see the data.  You can try it on several different devices to see if the data can be read or not.

I am interested to see how this saga continues.  Please return to tell me more.

[Robert_Hsu]

Thanks for the reply. That is exactly what I did, and my laptop can recognize the hard drive (without the cricket sound) but fail to identify the correct storage and read the data. So ...

1. Does this hard drive have to have the control unit to work?

2. Does that mean I would probably need to replace the heads to read the discs?

[TheOldMan]

If you have an adapter similar to the one I linked and the drive is recognized by the laptop, then it might be the drive has failed.  Depending on the laptop.  It this a Windows OS laptop or something else?

In answer to the questions

1) the hard drive needs to be powered and connected using SATA or IDE interface.  It does not need the enclosure it came in, but is does need something to replace the enclosure.  If you prove the enclosure is at fault, it can be replaced.

IE: https://www.amazon.com/hard-drive-enclosure/s?k=hard+drive+enclosure

2) the heads on a hard drive are not replaceable by the average or even an above-average user.  There are some firms that will do head replacement if they believe the data can be retrieved but at a very high cost and no guarantees

Unless there is something really valuable on this drive, it is beyond the normal user's desire to speed that much.