There is one way that you can try at home. See if you can get the PCB for that same drive. Sometimes you can get those from ebay.com and even other sources.
Mar 29, 2012 - There is one way that you can try at home. See if you can get the PCB for that same drive. Sometimes you can get those from ebay.com. Toshiba Canvio® Slim II for Mac® Portable External Hard Drive is ideal for taking your storage on the go. This drive offers high capacity storage in a slim and sleek brushed aluminum design that is a perfect companion for your MacBook.
You may have to do a comprehensive search based on the model number of your drive. Once you have it, replace the PCB and start to recover the files. This will only work if the failure of your drive is caused by an element on the PCB. If it is caused by an internal part, i.e. Platter, read/write heads, or the head actuator, you wont fix it at home. There is also a possibility that it could be the drive motor.
Toshiba Hdd2h74
The only other way would be to recover your files through one of the many commercial services. This is usually costly and would depend on the importance of your files. Hope this helps to get you started in the right direction.
If the drive was in use when your brother dropped it the mechanical systems most likely got damaged (head assembly & platters). What happens here is the heads dig-in to the platters both getting damaged.
Drivers For Toshiba Laptop
Some laptops have special sensors to park the heads before the system hits the ground. Sorry to say I don't know of any external HD's that have this technology. If they did the minor bumps these drives get wouldn't kill them (makes no difference on the physical size of the drive 2.5 or 3.5 all are susceptible). SSD's on the other hand can be banged into walls and dropped many stories without a worry which is one reason they are becoming the ideal choice for portable storage.