I suspect you know that external drives are nothing more than an internal drive in a case with some extra components to fill in what it gets out of the PC.

So, I'd take the outer case apart (not the drive inside) and look around. If the noise is coming from the drive itself, I'd make a backup of it very soon. You could then buy just another drive and put it in the old case. A drive that big would still be expensive, but cheaper than another external drive. However, I doubt if it's the drive itself.

If it is not the drive itself and it doesn't look repairable you might consider buying a case made for holding normally internal IDE drive and putting that big drive in the new case. Well, that is if I am right that what you have is an IDE drive inside a case. These kinds of cases are available at Best Buy, but I'm sure they are cheaper online.

Oh great, I now see others have replied. So I might be repeating what some others said, but I've typed this much, so here it is.

Hope it helps and not too much stuff repeated


>Ok I have one of those 750gig external hard drives, had it sitting on my floor. Last night I was watching a movie that was on it and kicked it over by mistake. It starting making this horrible noice, so I quickly unpluged it. I pick it up and hear a kinda loose wobble inside it - I dunno the case does have a fan built into it but I dunno if that's it or if it's the hard-drive itself. Anyone have any suggestions?