montana9550
Programmer
I have a friends crashed hard drive which I am attempting to try and recover any data from it that I possibly can. From the research I have done so far it is not looking promising but I figured I would see if anyone had any more ideas.
Drive: Western Digital WD800JB 80G
His computer locked up one day and on a reboot drive started the following symptoms and never booted again.
I have hooked the drive to an external hd (usb) connection so that I can listen to what it is doing very closely. When I turn the power on the disk spins up to what sounds like full speed and holds it for about 3-4 seconds. Then there is a moderately loud click and the drive spins down only to immediately spin up again and repeat the process. The click sounds like the 'reading arm' is locked/stuck maybe. Also a point on the circuit board underneath gets very hot within seconds of power on. Drive won't stay spinning so obviously I haven't been able to see the drive on any computer in any situation.
In my research it sounds like the drive is dead but I have seen some odd ideas like 'rubber mallet', 'put in in the freezer over night','order identical drive and switch out circuit boards', etc.
Are any of these things worth trying? Does anybody have any other suggestions? VERY IMPORTANT: Will any of these things damage the drive further so less data will be recovered by the pros?
There is very important information on the hard drive for my friends business. Telling him he should have backed up doesn't do much good after the fact and the drive will go to professional recovery if I can do nothing.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Drive: Western Digital WD800JB 80G
His computer locked up one day and on a reboot drive started the following symptoms and never booted again.
I have hooked the drive to an external hd (usb) connection so that I can listen to what it is doing very closely. When I turn the power on the disk spins up to what sounds like full speed and holds it for about 3-4 seconds. Then there is a moderately loud click and the drive spins down only to immediately spin up again and repeat the process. The click sounds like the 'reading arm' is locked/stuck maybe. Also a point on the circuit board underneath gets very hot within seconds of power on. Drive won't stay spinning so obviously I haven't been able to see the drive on any computer in any situation.
In my research it sounds like the drive is dead but I have seen some odd ideas like 'rubber mallet', 'put in in the freezer over night','order identical drive and switch out circuit boards', etc.
Are any of these things worth trying? Does anybody have any other suggestions? VERY IMPORTANT: Will any of these things damage the drive further so less data will be recovered by the pros?
There is very important information on the hard drive for my friends business. Telling him he should have backed up doesn't do much good after the fact and the drive will go to professional recovery if I can do nothing.
Thanks for any suggestions.