Harddrive panic-Help Needed

[M2005]

Ok guys so i have Seagate hardrive which i use as an external drive. I get to work and connect the hard drive.....it spins and thin Clunk, click, beep, click, beep, click, beep...etc. I have pictures,music. dont care for the music but the pics are kids memories

hard drive specs:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

400GB
firmware 3.AAK

Date code:07317

ST3400620AS

P/N: 9BJ144-308

really need help,

Miza

 

[stargazr]

uh oh, no backup? Sounds like it died. Try Seagate's utility, SeaTools:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

 

[M2005]

yes i tried that and it didnt recognize it. And no back up...... When i look at my computer menu it lists the drive but when i double click it, won't open

 

[WildW]

There probably isn't much useful advice once your drive is clunking and not working. In the past I've had occasional success with a clunking drive by powering on and just letting it spin for a while to warm up, maybe 5 or 10 minutes, before plugging in the USB. I've got a drive to work this way for just long enough to copy off the important bits.

 

[stargazr]

I was afraid of that. Usually those sounds mean it's dying or dead.

I don't know of anything other than trying a data recovery service, which is quite expensive. Hopefully someone else will have a simpler solution.

 

[M2005]

sigh

 

[Matt1970]

You can try the freezer trick. Put the drive in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer for a couple hours. It may not work at all but sometimes it can give you 15 minutes of life to recover the data.

 

[denis280]

Yes try the freezer trick.if the drive is not too bad it works. but be fast for transfer.
otherwise its over.

 

[C1]

First ensure that the enclosure is getting enough power. Try one of the "Y" USB cables (if you have one) where one branch supplies extra power. Otherwise, use a high quality short (one foot) USB cable.

Better yet is to pull the drive & connect it directly to an MB controller via an adapter (if needed). A highly capable program such as "SpinRight" ( http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm ) is often able to recover the data before the drive becomes too far gone.

 

[MrWizzard]

Sounds like the platters are ok, just some mechanical portion has died, possible board might be going bad also.

There are always the HD restorations people who tear down the drive and are usually pretty good at getting the info off. They are really expensive though like 2k to 7k.
They only charge you depending on how much data is recoverable usually though.

Not cheap, how much are those memories worth to you?

 

[M2005]

Ok, here is what i am planning to do. I bought a donor drive. Question is which would be better? swap the platters or the arm. I opened it and the little arm goes back and forth making the clicking sound. Almost seems that the little motor that moves the arm is bad. I talked to seagate about the data recovery and starts at 500 and goes to 2500. I am waiting for the drive to arrive next week to to begin surgery. Latex and screw drivers

 

[MrWizzard]

Ooh your going to do it yourself! I have always wanted to try that. Man you will have to be super careful. If I were you I would swap the platters from the bad drive to the good drive. That way everything is new except the platter. Otherwise if it’s the board or arm or motor you won't know which one to replace.

Let us know what happens. I am interested to see if this works.

 

[M2005]

I will keep everyone posted

 

[Matt1970]

They usually do them in a clean room. One spec of dust on the platters makes anything below that spec of dust unreadable. A motor swap would have higher success than platter swaps due to the formatting of the drive and the alignment of the heads.

 

[MrScott81]

I would highly recommend NOT swapping platters, for the same reason as the above poster mentioned. One spec of dust, and you're out of luck.

 

[M2005]

Alright guys the Donor HD is out for delivery. Will post tonight the outcome.