To the person looking for a home method for data recovery, the only home method that's possible is the same sort of method you would get from Geek Squad and many data recovery services (at the affordable level). However, before I tell you how to do it, let me just say that we tried it with my husband's 1Tb Seagate drive (which started flashing with a subtle beep that sounded about every 1 s), and it didn't work. So I doubt it will work for you. But, the generic method for trying to recover data from a HDD (which is what is inside an external drive), is to purchase a SATA/IDE cable. This is essentially a device that plugs into the wall socket and provides direct current to the hard drive (it has a special cable to connect to the hard drive, but you will need to take it out of its metal case, which lies within the plastic Seagate case). There is an additional cable that then also connects to the HDD with a USB port on one end. Stick the USB end in your computer and if the drive is recoverable, then it should pop up and be readable like any other drive.
That being said, again, this did not work for us. Which means that it would require a clean room, so that the inside of the HDD can be opened for data recovery. Any spec of dust can ruin everything, which is why a clean room is necessary, and why data recovery is so expensive. So power is clearly not a problem, since it doesn't work with a direct AC current power supply. After reading through all the posts, there was one person who said that it was feeling warm, so perhaps something gets too hot within the drive? In our case, the problem developed immediately after my husband accidentally dropped it onto our soft carpet (he was swerving to avoid a cat under his foot, not just careless). The problem is exactly as described by everyone here. So I'm also wondering if the components within the drive are poorly put together such that after enough movement (not neccesarily even dropping), it doesn't take much to jostle something out of place, resulting in the failure of the drive. I'm sure ours has survived a fall before, as much as you try, these things are going to hit the ground once or twice. I may even have been the one to knock it off the desk when sorting cables. If something is poorly constructed, it doesn't take much to break it. The internal padding isn't very great either. It consists of 6 small peices of foam tape (similar to the sort of thing you can get to stick posters on the wall). Of course, much more would probably increase heating for the device, so I can't fault them too much for that.
All this being said, I've bad experiences with WD external drives too (which was my form of back up when my laptop died just before my PhD thesis was due... then when I needed it most the WD drive got corrupted and kept destroying all my figures, text etc.)
The labs at school use LaCie drives, if that helps anyone.
