Hard drive click-o-death fixable?

[EJ]

Have a hard drive that sometimes makes the clicking noise and computer freezes. Sometime it's possible to continue(of course it will start clicking again) , other times it hard locks and have to reboot.

Sometime when I reboot the hard drive doesn't even get recognized.

So is this fixable?

Thanks,
EJ

 

[morkinva]

back it up, call it off

 

[HappyPuppy]

If you have some machinist skills you can disassemble the HDD, chuck the platters up in your lathe and take a few thousandths off the surface. That usually does it for me.

 

[88JeepXJ]

I had this prob on a 15gb IBM drive. I ran checkdisk and had windows fix all problems. Took awhile but it marks the bad sectors and doesnt try to read them anymore. You lose a few MBs but the harddrive has run OK since.

 

[Buzzman151]

Step 1: BAck up data
Step 2: TAke HD out of case
Step 3: SHACK THE DIRTY BASTARD ALL AROUND
Step 4: Put back in case
Step 5: Test to see if it still makes noise, if it still makes noise, go to Step 6
Step 6: THROW DIRTY BASTARD COMPUTER OUT WINDOW

 

[Mavrick007]

I would say that it's not fixable, and even if you do manage to fix it, experience tells me that it will probably happen soon again.
Get the data off the drive if you can and RMA it back. It will be more hassle to keep it going than replacing it.

 

[88JeepXJ]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
If you have some machinist skills you can disassemble the HDD, chuck the platters up in your lathe and take a few thousandths off the surface. That usually does it for me.

Are you serious?? Maybe I'm just gullable...

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
If you have some machinist skills you can disassemble the HDD, chuck the platters up in your lathe and take a few thousandths off the surface. That usually does it for me.

Don't forget to grease the platters too to let it go faster.

88JeepXJ - we're not serious.

 

[sechs]

A backup is highly advised. A low-level format may fix it; you may wish to try some destructive tests to confirm that the drive is fine.

 

[monckywrench]

If you want to use the thing for a non-critical application you could try connecting it to a 386 or 486 that (most of them do) has a low-level format option/disk diagnostics option in the BIOS, and leaving it to format (takes several hours at best). One of my friends has done this with many drives with an excellent success rate, and I've done several. I'm not sure why the BIOS format works better than proprietary floppy-based tools from the drive makers or progs like Spinrite. Might be related to the very slow speed of the process.

 

[Smilin]

Your drive is gone.

Backup up whatever data you can get right now.

What are you still reading for? I said go backup.

If you want to just for the fun of it you can take the cover off the drive and move the armature through a full motion with your finger. Close the drive back up and see if that does it. This may work but theres a very good chance that the dirt you introduce by opening the drive is going to cause immediate data loss.

What ever you do, do NOT rely on this drive ever again.

Sorry man. At least you're lucky enough that it's still partially functional - you might have time to get a backup in.

 

[AllABoutTheDeals]

Try moving your 15" subwoofer away from the CPU.

 

[gentobu]

Try one of these methods. Ive heard that freezing the drive sometimes works...

 

[Rav3n]

If its an IBM GXP drive, its good as toast and backing it up is a pretty damn good idea.

 

[EJ]

Rav3n gets a cookie for guessing the brand of the hard drive

It did finally die and my Aunt lost her xp product key. I had to install Windows ME on her new drive.

Sorry I couldn't have replied sooner, harddrive gone and cable internet died about the same time.


Thanks for all your replies,
EJ

 

[GregANDTCH]

lost her xp product key. I had to install Windows ME on her new drive

That's enough to make me sick right there!

Excuse Me
(leaves room & tosses cookies)
back now

Sorry you had to go through all that.