External HDD USB connection broken

[Borzoi]

Hello everyone. Hopefully somebody can help me.

I have an old 250 GB external HDD which I used to use for data storage. It's a fairly old model (bought it in 2005) and the USB port on the caddy seems to be broken. At first, I could have the HDD connrcted if the USB cable was in a specific position but that no longer works.

I was wondering if someone could tell me if this particular external HDD is, like most, an internal drive in a shell or an actual drive.

Unfortunately, I don't have the model number but it's a Freecom 250 GB external HDD. It looks exactly like this: http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/4/0/3/9/403989.jpg

If anyone does know if it is an internal drive in a shell, please let me know.

The shell on it is quite tight so I'm going to need tools to rip it off. The drive has had this problem for a couple of years now, I've just not had anything to transfer the data to until now so I haven't bothered to try.

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Below is information that can be skipped as it's just background on what's on the drive.

I used to use the drive for storage, as if it was an internal (I know, bad idea) and because of this, it has data on it I wish to get off it that I don't have backed up anywhere. Some of it I don't mind losing but a lot of it I would like to keep. I have spare connections on my motherboard for another drive so I was thinking of taking the drive out of the shell as almost all external HDD drives are simply internal drives in a caddy, as we are all aware, but because this is such an old model, I don't know if this is the case for this one so I was wondering if anybody here could help me before I rip off the shell and effectively destroy the data.

It won't be a huge loss if I can't retrieve the data. It's mainly things like music and videos. It just means that I'll have to buy it all again.

[caperjack]

yes it will have an internal drive inside ,and it went together so it will come apart

[TheQuestor]

You should be able to crack the case and pull out the HD and either put it in a new external case or hook it to a ribbon cable on your PC to pull all the data off of it. At that age it is most likely a PATA drive which will need to connect to a pata controller, or use a PATA to SATA converter to connect it to a sata port.

[faroukmuhammad]

First things first: did you try using another cable? Most of the cases I had usually turn out to be the cable.

[Borzoi]

Sorry for the late reply.

Yes, I have tried another cable. I used a cable I know definitely works as it is used in another external HDD.

I'm going to close this as there's nothing else to be added at this point. Thanks for the help everyone.

[cloud_server]

About my thought you need to repair the external usb connection by any computer hardware professional but if it not possible then you need to buy a new one.