If you’ve ever dropped your external hard drive whilst it’s been switched on and then found it does nothing except go buzz… buzz… buzz… then you’ve had a seized motor or spindle failure…. This is one of the worst types of hard disk failure as it involves the mechanical (moving) parts of the hard drive. Recovering the data usually means stripping the drive down in the clean room, removing & replacing the seized parts before finally rebuilding the hard drive.
Here’s YouTube video that shows a seized spindle motor