WD hd died...3 clicks and stops spinnning

[Jenk2k]

Anybody got the hookup on lower cost data recovery? the drive spins up, clicks 3 times, and stops running. been considering buying one and moving the platter. dont know how serious teh whole "clean room" thing is but would love to hear some perspective on this.

[MrBlack]

May I ask in all seriousness, what putting his HD in the freezer will accomplish except putting condensation on the electronics and shorting it out once plugged in ?

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by MrBlack

May I ask in all seriousness, what putting his HD in the freezer will accomplish except putting condensation on the electronics and shorting it out once plugged in ?

Achtualy it seems to work quite well as a last resort about 10-25% of the time. If you put the drive in a bag it cuts down on moisture. Worked here once and I heard of it working here on the DUC 3-4 times.

If the drive is new, still in production and you can buy another drive with the same exact firmware I would check into swapping out the bridge board with a new one as they can and do fail. This is one of the first steps that most data recovery places make on drives that wont spin up.

[Jenk2k]

i havent tried the freezer thing. i have never done that. i suspect that helps with over heating drives. not sure how it would work but operating a drive at a temp outside of its operating range scares me. the way it spins up, clicks 3 times and stops indicates to me something failed and the firmware is instructing the drive to stop spinning. very hesitatnt to do this. the data on there is important of course. but no budget for $500+ data recovery.

[albee1952]

I can attest to the freezer method working SOMETIMES. Put the drive in a ziplok bag and freeze for 3 hours or so. Hook up to the computer(have another drive hooked up and ready to transfer files to, just in case it works. You may only get one shot at it. As for swapping the logic board, that can work, but it will need to be identical. Swapping platters looks like an exercise in frustration(they don't build those things to be serviced). Its also a valuable lesson for everyone.

If it does not exist in 3 places, it is not backed up.

If its not backed up.......you see what happens

[MrBlack]

Originally Posted by MrBlack

May I ask in all seriousness, what putting his HD in the freezer will accomplish except putting condensation on the electronics and shorting it out once plugged in ?

My my - i do humbly apologize, as I have mentioned before I previously worked in IT and have worked on hundreds of hd's, never once heard of the freezer technique, tested here : http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/200...over-data.html

Edit:

I am intrigued by this freezer trick, some googling:

''This will only work if the electronic components go out. When that happens microscopic wires break and freezing them allows them to shrink and reconnect but as soon as it heats back up they disconnect again. This will not work for a clicking issue unless the clicking is not what caused the problem in the first place.

Clicking is the head crashing into the platter because of an uneven surface. freezing will do nothing to correct that.''

seems plausible..

but be careful...

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7118/1hd3yg.jpg

[sunburst79]

As far as swapping platters goes thats not something I would recommend at home....If they didn't need clean rooms they wouldn't go to the expense of building them. At one time smoking was forbiddin in data centers because the smoke particles were thought to cause head crashes and the nicotene gummed up relays (remember those?)

Number two. Check with WD before you do anything. It may be a common problem and they may actually offer data recovery services in rare cases.

Allbees correct in that you should be ready to recover if you decide the freezer route.

[kbruff]

Originally Posted by Jenk2k

Anybody got the hookup on lower cost data recovery? the drive spins up, clicks 3 times, and stops running. been considering buying one and moving the platter. dont know how serious teh whole "clean room" thing is but would love to hear some perspective on this.

here are the experts in my local area:
http://www.techfusion.com/DataRecovery.html

[DGraham]

What WD drive was it exactly? I had my WD Caviar Black drive tell me it wasn't formated the other day. Brand new drive, less than 2 months old... No idea what happened. Just tried to access it and was given that message.

After my file recovery failed I just reformatted and now all seems well, I guess. Still have to re-record some guys for free...

Needed a new drive, and from what I read ont he DUC it was probably the best one to grab. Never expected something like this to happen... Then again, I have no idea why this happened.

Been backing up every night instead of every week now... Lesson learned.

[Jenk2k]

it was a WD 1200 160gb IDE drive.

it was inside a WD external USB drive, and it was dropped by a teen on my tile floor.