[Doublej]

The house cleaners knocked my external hard drive off the shelf and onto the floor. They didn't even tell me. Now the hard drive is not readable.

I took it apart and the head was resting on the platter. I re-seated it, no luck but the drive is now partially recognized by Windows. It says it there but that is all.

Are they any open source recovery tools that might be able to see if there is anything readable? I Googled but couldn't find anything though I might not be putting in the proper search term.

It's a Western Digital My Passport.

[GentleBender]

I don't know of any "open source" data recovery tools, not saying there are none. Are you just wanting free?

Here is a thread from a little bit ago that refers several programs. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=140087.0

[Doublej]

No I will pay if necessary but I always look for open source first.

[chip]

Try Recuva you may also want to try http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Doublej]

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll give them a shot and if they don't work I have a recommendation for a commercial tool called Systools software.

[jmc207]

I've had better luck with http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/power-data-recovery.html than Recuva.