Hard Drive Making a clicking noise...

[madnesdragon]

My external hard drive is making a clicking noise. what is wrong with this?

Is there any way of getting the data out of the hard drive myself apart from taking it into the shops which cost a fortune?

 

[vacunita]

Clicking noises usually mean there is something wrong with the internal workings of the drive. You might however stil be abler to get some daya off of it.

You could attempt to open the enclosure take out the drive, and connect it to a desktop PC as a slave. It should get picked up by the computer's BIOS first even before loading windows. If it isn't chances are a Professional Recovery service is the only way to go. If it is it might then be possible to access it via windows and you'd be able to get the data out.

If it gets picked up by the computer's bios but windows can;t see it then you'll most likely need a Data recovery tool. Like File Recovery Pro, or something like that.







----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[cdogg]

madnesdragon,
I see you abandoned your thread from two days ago (though I don't know why). It would be nice for others who see this thread to know a little background on the issue.

So now it's making a clicking noise, eh?

I would worry less about what exactly is wrong and just focus on getting your data off the drive. I did a quick search on

http://www.download.com

and found:

http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?tg=dl-20&qt=recovery&tag=srch

From this list, I noticed that PC Inspector File Recovery 3.0 was free. I'm sure there are others, and most if not all have a free trial.

If a software program can't recover your data, then it will have to be disassembled and read using special hardware that only a professional recovery service can help you with. The cost has be weighed against the importance of the data.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[madnesdragon]

I cant even use these softwares cos the computer dont even detect the drive.

 

[firewolfrl]

Hmmm!
the clicking noise is because the armature is in a park position then tries to come out to a read position ... errors on the platter send it back to the park postition. so you here a constant rhythmic clicking noise. This can be caused by moisture, dust, debris, scratch from vibration or bearing material on the platter that has some how attached to the platter. Once the armature is knocked out of alignment the drive is toast. think of trying to keep something finer than hair straight when it bumps into something.
I have opened up lots of non warranty dead drives that do what you say yours does...usually I see a circular black streak where the damage is.


Here is your test on whether you are sending the drive to a lab or not

open and remove the drive out of the external case
plug the drive to the power only on a computer (no IDE or SATA) if it still makes the noise then you are a lab candidate

you may only get a small percentage of the data off the drive.

wish you luck

 

[cdogg]

I cant even use these softwares cos the computer dont even detect the drive.

Ah, but that's why you've been given the following suggestions. It would be nice to know what you've tried:

1) Connect the external drive to another PC (You never answered this from the other thread you started)
2) Take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it as an internal drive

If you can't get the drive to be detected in more than one PC, then you're back to the question of how much you're willing to spend to have a professional recovery service do it for you.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[madnesdragon]

i havent had time to connect this internally yet. i have tried connecting it to another computer but its just the same thing.

 

[firewolfrl]

madnesdragon,
connecting to another computer with the USB is not going to do any more than it does now because you have not followed the advice of the those that know what they are talking about.

good luck and post after you have tried some of the ideas from the thread