External Hard Drive Woes

[UsernameTaken]

I have 2 external hard drives that I am having trouble with.

The first is a Western Digital Passport portable external hard drive. It is a 2.5" drive with a USB connection, no power supply. I plug it in and the light on the drive comes on but it does not appear in My Computer or Disk Management, and in Safely Remove Hardware it is only labeled as "USB device"

I have tried multiple computers (all XP), USB cables, and ports. Is there anything I can do to get the files off it or is it doomed?

I don't get any warnings or errors or anything when I plug it in. I hear the noise that occurs when you plug in stuff like thumb drives and also when you remove them. It doesn't show up in disk management and I haven't changed anything on the computers that I'm using.

The second is a Seagate that was damaged in shipping. It is out of warranty so I cracked it open. From what I can tell just looking at it, it should be in working order except that the mini-USB connector has simply popped off. I can't just plug the SATA directly to my motherboard because of how the PCB is connected.

So what I'm wondering is how I should go about getting the data off of it? If I soldered the mini-USB connector back on it would work fine, correct? I don't know how to solder and I only have a handful of friends who can, and they aren't very good at it. It's a pretty small connector, I wouldn't be comfortable doing it myself even if I bought a soldering iron and learned how. Can I take it somewhere that will do it for me?

Thanks in advance.

 

[salvage-this]

The second is a Seagate that was damaged in shipping. It is out of warranty so I cracked it open. From what I can tell just looking at it, it should be in working order except that the mini-USB connector has simply popped off. I can't just plug the SATA directly to my motherboard because of how the PCB is connected.

So what I'm wondering is how I should go about getting the data off of it? If I soldered the mini-USB connector back on it would work fine, correct? I don't know how to solder and I only have a handful of friends who can, and they aren't very good at it. It's a pretty small connector, I wouldn't be comfortable doing it myself even if I bought a soldering iron and learned how. Can I take it somewhere that will do it for me?

Thanks in advance.

You mentioned that the mini usb came off. Where did it come off of? I just had a problem similar to this with my seagate external. when I opened it up, I had a regular internal harddrive and a connector that plugged into the sata ports for the power and data. It was like a little circuit board that had the ports for power and a mini usb. Is that where the mini usb came off of? or do you have a completely different setup?

 

[UsernameTaken]

You mentioned that the mini usb came off. Where did it come off of? I just had a problem similar to this with my seagate external. when I opened it up, I had a regular internal harddrive and a connector that plugged into the sata ports for the power and data. It was like a little circuit board that had the ports for power and a mini usb. Is that where the mini usb came off of? or do you have a completely different setup?

unfortunately, the circuit board is soldered directly to the sata ports.
mini usb came off here:

sata ports:

 

[salvage-this]

unfortunately, the circuit board is soldered directly to the sata ports.
mini usb came off here:

It looks to me that you can just pull off the circuit board off of the sata ports and use it as an internal. You said that they were soldiered on? I know that that black connector piece is soldiered on, but it should just pull off of the drive. There is another 4 pin connector on the side of the sata ports (I am not exactly sure what it is for) but that says to me that it is an internal drive and the circuit board can come off. Without taking off any solider. That black piece that is on the circuit board is not the sata connectors for the drive. It is the connectors from the hard drive's sata ports to the circuit board. This takes the data and the power and transfers it to your external inputs. (mini usb and power) .If that is still hard to pull out, look for other screws that you may have missed. The drive should look exactly the same as if you had bought another internal drive.

Hope this provides some help, I give you some pictures of mine but my camera sucks and you would not be able to make out anything.