A friend of mine who is a DJ dropped one of his friends external hard drives in the dark the other night while spinning at a club. Once he got home he attempted to plug his friends external USB hard drive, which is a 1TB SimpleDrive (model #96300-41001-170), into his computer but it was not being recognized. Once he tried a couple of other things he gave me a call to see if I could look at it. Without going into details about what was wrong with the hard drive itself I thought others might find it useful to have instructions including pictures about how to remove the hard drive from the SimpleDrive case. Below I describe how to remove the hard drive from a external USB 1 Terabyte SimpleDrive.
Remove The Hard Drive From A 1TB SimpleDrive Case Model #96300-41001-170:
- Remove SimpleDrive Front Cover: First you will need to pop off the front cover of the SimpleDrive case which is the end with the power/activity light opposite where the Ethernet cable and USB cable plugin to the SimpleDrive case as displayed in the example image below.
The front cover can be popped off from the side closest to the light on the right in the above example. The image below shows how the cover connects to the main part of the case with a clip and using a flat head screwdriver can be removed.
- Remove SimpleDrive Case Screws: Now using a phillips head screwdriver remove the two screws that were exposed by removing the front cover as displayed in the below image.
- Open SimpleDrive Case: With the two phillips head screws removed you can now open the case. You can accomplish opening the case by moving the top of the case away from the bottom of the case as shown in the two example images below.
Make sure to be careful sliding the case apart as it is possible to break the clips if you are rough in the process. - Remove Drive From Case: After the case has been opened it will display the insides of the 1TB SimpleDrive external hard drive which include a control, the hard drive, and the rails that hold the drive in place as displayed below.
Remove the four screws holding the hard drive and the rails/case around the hard drive. You can see the four screws to remove located around the outside of the hard drive screwed into black plastic as shown in the example image above.
- Remove Rails From SATA Hard Drive: Once the above screws are removed you will be able to remove the SATA hard drive still attached to the controller and the rails to keep it in place. Remove the rails by removing four more screws from the sides of the SATA hard drive as shown in the below images.
With the rails and case removed the hard drive will now be fully exposed for you to use in another place or possibly troubleshoot if you had a similar issue to mine mentioned above.
HGST SimpleDrive 2TB Turbo USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)
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Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34275 (Personal Computers)
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And what was wrong? I dropped mine and now it just makes a weird noise D:
Hello Ozzcar,
A weird noise is never good with a hard drive. :) I suggest backing up your data before the disk goes bad. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
Thanks for the tutorial!
Hello Gif,
No problem at all. Thanks for leaving feedback.
Thanks.
alex
My harddrive will not power up. So now that I have the harddrive out – THANKS BUNCHES for the tutorial, what do I do to get the information off of it?
Thans
Hello eavafb,
No problem. As for getting data off the drive you would need to try a recovery program such as getdataback but if that doesn’t work and the data on the drive is important enough you can send it away for a data recovery.
Thanks.
alex
Also good procedure for removing 2 TB drive out of SimpleTech’s SimpleDrive model# 96300-41001-305 –
It’s just that the tool that you use to insert in the first slot in case closest to the drive activity lamp needs to be small enough to fit through the slot, while pushing front panel off, with gentle pressure inward, toward front panel, pushing between the side of case and the disk light (near the corner). I used a large paper binder clip, straightened out, which was small enough to fit through the slot. A coat hanger is too thick, as were all the small flat head screwdrivers I had in the tool box. That unbent paper clip (large binder clamp, shaped like “Office Depot® Ideal Clamps, 1 1/2″, Silver, Pack Of 50, Item # 199856”) worked like a champ – from there, just follow the procedure above, removing “rails,” etc.
You can then insert a smaller SATA drive or another 2 TB SATA drive in it’s place.
Good luck and GREAT DRIVE (especially for the money (on special)…
Hello alien123,
Thanks for providing the extra info! Surely it will help others taking these apart in the future.
Thanks.
alex
I have a similar drive that has made buzzing noises off and on since I’ve had it. I picked it up the other day and heard something rattling inside. Thanks to these instructions I took it apart and found a spare screw inside. The drive still works … without the buzzing sound now.
Thanks for the instructions!
Hello ktek77,
No problem. Glad you got your issue worked out. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
Well mine is dead as well. Does the case the hard drive is in have another power source that is maybe defective? Anyway to prove it is or isn’t the power cord from the wall to the device?
I wouldn’t think the drive is bad so once you remove the drive out of the plastic case can you just install it into a computer?
Thanks
John
Hello JRATL,
It could definitely be a defective power source and could prove it by replacing the power cable or by testing each location where the power runs internally. Also yes you could just install the HDD inside another computer.
Hope that helps.
Thanks.
alex
Thank you so much for this. Saved me breaking the case and potentially the SATA connections. You sure, are a gentleman and a scholar.
Hello JH,
No problem. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
The SimpleTech SimpleDrive I have was not powering up. The HD status light just blinks and Windows doesnt recognize it. I’ve tried rebooting, different cables and nothing appeared to work so I pulled the drive and installed it in a new external drive case… Same exact result – just a blinking status light. It doesnt sound like the drive fires up at all. Any thoughts? I’m fearing the actual drive itself is shot. …ergh…
Hello JetsFan69,
Did you try to follow the directions in the article above?
Thanks.
alex
Thank you so much for this simple tutorial.
My Simple Drive suddenly stopped working, no warning. I guessed the drive itself was still alright but couldn’t work how to get it out until I saw this. Thank you very much for helping to rescue a very valuable drive.
Now to back it up!