Salvaging a HardDrive... need some advice...

[Roy Howell]

Hey you guys...
Last week, my storage drive (WestDigital 60gb/7200) started 'clicking', first randomly, and then more like a clock, which it's doing now.
It sounds like the disc is barely scraping something very slightly, about every second.
Though I back up all my sessions, there are all types of other things I need to try and salvage on the drive if at all possible.
I just installed it in another pc, and as it was doing a CHKDSK, it recognized all the files on it but froze up on the last phase, a security check of some sort. I tried again and it booted without recognizing the drive.

My question is this. Has anyone ever successfully opened a hard drive and fixed it? I've done this myself with a CD burner and fixed it, but never a hard drive.
Any advice, I'll really appreciate, though I'm prepared to mourn it's demise if I have to.
thanks, Roy

[Rail Jon Rogut]

First try giving it a gentle Fonzie with the back of a screwdriver.. then immediately copy the drive contents to another drive.

Rail

[Bastiaan]

whatever you do...don't open the harddrive. The hardrive could be damged, because the space the ehads are from the actual disc is very very small (smaller then the thickness of a human hair), and floats on a bed of air. Disrupt the head and it breaks. Disrupt the discsurface, and it will scrape off. So...dont open it, unless you are COMPLETELY out of options. But i think it wont help you.

Get a new HD, install it in the system, and get the old one going with the screwdriver thing, and copy it like an idiot...

[IntelDoc]

Roy,
I would seriously try to get as much data copied over from that thing. Sounds like you may have a bad disk on the tray. If that goes bad, and it is indeed scratching the disk your data will be screwed. Get as much as you can off it, and scrap it. I prefer WesternDigital Drives, but have had bad luck with them in the past similar to what you are experiencing. I use all Maxtor drives and Cheetah drives now. No probs at all. Sounds like you may have a bad drive that is on the verge of self destruction. Get all the data you can and run with it my friend!

-Doc

[Roy Howell]

Rail,
I have tried a good slap or two... didn't really do it. I would probably have opened it already, but didn't have the right size hex screwdriver. I wonder what makes the clicking sound? It actually sounds like a mechanical thing (maybe I should check the oil... ).

thanks, Roy

[Roy Howell]

Thanks you guys.....sheesh, I hate this. I have made room to start copying like a madman, but now it won't open at all.
Just since I've posted this, I realized that if I open it myself, the warranty will be void, so that's out. I just got this bad boy back in March.
One word for this.... Sheesh.
thanks, Roy

[JMS40]

Hi Roy-

Yes, I've opened up HD's before out of curiosity. Nothing there is user serviceable, however.
As everyone else has said, copy it as soon as possible.
If you don't make it through the process before the drive locks, put it in a zip lock and leave it in your freezer for a couple of hours.
I have successfully transferred locked drives with that method.
There is little doubt the drive is about to mechanically fail when it begins to click.

Good luck and Happy New Year.
Jonmark

[spkguitar]

Roy,
I had a similar situation recently and had some luck salvaging things with this program:

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

I don't know if it will work for you, but it's worth a try.

[IntelDoc]

Roy, another option that you can try that I had to do was to slap that thing into your new system as a SLAVE to the primary drive. Let it boot and then copy over. DO NOT COPY HUGE FILES AT A TIME. I tried that with a 40 gig drive that had music on it and it took forever. 2 days to copy a file. If the data is corrupt, it is corrupt. Not much that you can do. Just an idea though. Even better if you have a separate IDE controller card, ($50.00) put it on that and see what it does. Also try to scnadisk it on the other machine and then try a defrag.

Good luck, and DO NOT OPEN IT!

-Doc

[Roy Howell]

OK thanks, Chris. It's lookin pretty bad though. It will still click, but won't be recognized, much less open. It's probably headed for the HD graveyard, along with my files.
Enough whining though...
thanks~