If an external drive has either been, literally, burned up in its enclosure by some external heat source or subject to a true dropping incident that most often will effectively destroy the drive and the only way to recover data then is to send it out to someone who can do data recovery. I can assure you, that routinely costs in the hundreds of dollars at a minimum.
I mention this because, based on what I got from what Doug originally posted, this is not an instance of someone trying to scam him, but giving it to him straight. I could be wrong if the drive itself is not effectively destroyed, but that's not what was presented, and I have no reason to doubt the original description. Transferring an intact disc drive, whether external or internal, to a new computer or external case is, indeed, a simple process. Brian
