Dropped Hard Drive, Stopped Working!!! HELP!

So my whole world just stopped when I found out my HD is not recognisable anymore on my laptop.

It fell and dropped on the tile floor like 20 minutes ago. I dropped it like four times already but this time it's really bad. My laptop is not reading it anymore and there's this beeping sound that comes from it and I don't know what to do.

Like, my life is in that hard drive, all my pictures are there (more or less 70 thousand pictures, from college till present), 400 plus movies and not to mention all the important documents from college and visa related stuff.

I'm posting to share my frustration and hoping that someone can shed some light and have any idea if I can still recover all the files.. This is ridiculous. Not the perfect time. Been watching movies to get me through the waiting game and now I'm doomed.

Do not do anything yet, stop, wait, investigate and get prepared.

Better to wait a week than to try a quick fix that destroys the hard drive and data.

If you do manage to recover it, be ready to copy everything onto a new hard drive immediately.

There are various "you tube" videos on the net showing how to open your drive and recover the data such as this one. I have no personal experience of doing this, it might possibly work but it might not, very dangerous you could lose your data, don't do it.

Wait for any other suggestions before trying anything like that.

But most importantly take your time, investigate the options.

I don't really want to take the risk and open it myself athough I'm tempted to but I'm afraid I might do something with it and destroy it completely then I will lose all my data.

Good decision, take your time over this, everything is most likely still there you just need to find if there is a safe way to access it.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.

No worries but thank you for taking time to reply.

This is why I upload photos on Facebook.
Good luck, Glenn. I am hoping you retrieve the files.

I'm sure my friends will laugh at me. I don't really upload all my pics so I stored them in the HD and now I messed up. But thank you Joy.

If it is making a noise it would suggest that it is physically damaged which means the files may not be recoverable either fully or partially.

If the machine is capable from booting from USB then you might be able to get hold of a Linux ISO and create a bootable USB stick and boot the machine from that. You can then plug the disk in and see whether the files are viewable/exist. If yes then you could copy the files to other media, if not then the disk will probably need to be binned.

Not sure if there are experts here in the Philippines but I think I can do it in the UK but I know it would be very expensive.

Yes the drive is still vibrating and the LED is still on but my laptop wont recognise it.

It's only vibrating like normal when I plugged it but I tried inserting another cable still it won't read. Not sure about capable of booting but I'm hoping I can still recover it.

Even if your machine isnt capable, if you know someone who has a capable machine then the process can be done on that and then just plug your hdd in and see.

i thought hard drives were almost indestructable.

Depends. Solid state should be better at being dropped than a disk with head/platter. From memory a plattered disk can withstand a max of 7g impact.

Take it down to your nearest computer geek shop. Plenty in the Phils.

Technicians in Greenhills is your best bet.

If it's physically damaged, and depending on the damage, there's a big chance you won't be able to recover it.

That is why you should always use cloud if you have files that are very important.

I use dropbox to keep my important files.

I do the same because you know at some time or another it is likely you're going to lose the information stored on your pc/external drives.

Guys anyone here knows where I can bring my wife's birth certificate to get translated from Spanish to English and is accredited by the UKVI. Thanks