One of my HDs goes click click click... :(

All of a sudden my computer froze. I had no idea why, but noticed a faint click, click, click noise coming from my computer. I shut everything down and rebooted. Boot disk failure it says! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif I notice the click, click, click again and realized it was my secondary drive. I disconnected it (it was slave to my boot drive) and tried rebooting again. It works, WHEW!!! Most of my info is safe, but my mp3 collection, pics and just a bunch of multimedia files are now gone. Does anybody know how to recover the files? I assume the click, click, click is from the HD head getting stuck somehow. Any way to dislodge it without screwing the whole thing up? Well, how much more can I screw it up, right? The info isn't worth the $$$ to get profesionals to recover it, but I would love to be able to just copy everything onto another drive. I think I heard once that I should freeze it? Not sure if that's for real or not. Would smacking it on my table work? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Computer experts, I need your help! Even a partial recovery if better than none.

I will be curious for a reply as well. The exact same thing happened to me a few years ago when the drive was just a few months old. Fine one night, got up the next morning, click-click and dead. I never tried to recover the data, just had it replaced under warranty.

Im sorry to tell you this,,,, but,,, your screwed.
That drive is TOAST.

Ive had MANY do that at work, its a constant, steady click, as the drive tries to read over and over again.
You will not recover it, ive never had one stop clicking long enough to read data.

Also, your not gonna send it away to have it recovered, last time i had that done, it was over $100 for 10 meg. Plus a couple hundred just to take it apart. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

This might help,
gently take the failing drive out of the comp. Place is on a hard surface, such as concrete, or on top of an anvil,
Then very carefully, take a 16 sleg and, POUND THE THING INTO A HEAP OF BROKEN METAL AND SILICON. !!!

... made me feel better.

-John

Just as a last ditch effort, you could try placing the failed drive in a freezer. I've seen the techs at work do this and quite frequently it works! I'm not much of a hardware techie, but they explained to me that it has something to do with the metal contracting in the cold and it works. Although it sounds like a stretch, I'd try that before scrapping the thing.

Abbie

The sound you are hearing is frequently a problem with the platter getting up to speed.

I have successfully recovered data from a drive with these symptoms.

The technique overview; keep the drive chilled so that some parts will contract a little and parts that are overheated remain near room temperature. Don't touch the circuit board of the drive at any time.

Parts;
Zip lock
dessicant packet
can of 'comperssed air'

Process;

Find a little dessicant packet from a recent purchase. You probably get one with a new drive. Put the desicant in a ziplock with the bad drive. Place in freezer for about 4 hours so the temperature can equalize.

Get your computer ready to go. You will NOT install the drive, so make sure cables are hanging out to attach the drive.

Attach the drive and boot it. Every 30 seconds or so, invert the can of compressed air and give the metal section next to the circuit board a two or 3 ssecond blast. It should turn frosty white.

If you are lucky, you will be able to get it to spin up and run long enough to copy the data.

Another technique frequently used in data centers; remove the drive from it's mounting but leave it connected. As it starts the tic-tic noise, rap the metal edge of the drive case gently with a plastic screw driver. Too hard and you get head crash.

You can also try booting it with the drive in various positions, but that almost never works.

Good luck.

Daniel

Damn I took jtice's advice before reading gadget_lover's post! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif Hehehe... just kidding. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

This actually happened last night, but I'll give it a shot when I get home tonight. Does it have to be a ziplock or could any sandwich bag with a twisty work? I understand not wanting moisture to get in there. I might just buy some ziplocks on my way home. I'm sure I can find a dessicant packet and I have the compressed air. Now this is a old Maxtor drive; Part of the circuit is exposed. Where am I suppose to spray the air? I assume spraying it directly onto the circuit board is a bad thing??? What exactly am I trying to keep cool? Should I be aiming for the center of the platter or something else?

Oh yeah, why do you say invert the can of air? That is confusing me a little.

keep the can upright, you get cool, refreshing air.. that can also annoy your pets and friends.
flip the can upside down, and you've got snow! (well, liquefied air)

the idea is to keep the circuit board cool. and yes, too much liquefied air might short out the circuit board, so keep your spraying to quick short blasts.

Ah okay, I didn't know it was colder when upside down. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif When I've used it I always got that frosty finger no matter what. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Now what am I aiming the cold blast at?

The "air cans" really contain R-134A
They used to use Freon 12 I think for those cans until they found that it's bad for the ozone layer.

When you invert the can, you'll get the liquid refrigerant out which you can use to chill/freeze stuff.

Butane can also be used in a similar manner but don't light a match or have any ignition sources nearby!

CO2 can also work if you don't mind having it pressurized to 800PSI when you release it.

You generally want to make the BODY of the drive cold. The circuit board heat sinks to the body, so that takes care of the circuits.

Old maxtor..... Darn, I don't have one at the moment. You should be able to spray the aluminum body next to the circuit board. Don;t bother trying to cool the shiny aluminum cover on the side opposite the circuit board. It does not support the disk.

I've crossed my fingers for you.

Daniel

Man, that sucks. I heard mine do that once, and the next day I had a new HDD from newegg at my doorstep and backed everything up. That was eight months ago and not a peep from it since. So now I have some insane 180GB in this machine alone /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif. I know of a place in Houston, Data Recovery Services who tries to get that stuff back up, but as jtice said, its crazy expensive. $100 just for look to see if its fixable, then a crapload after that, but they do get stuff back up. A local, yet highly known car dealership in Humble burned down a few years ago, and their computers went with it. They had pictures of the drives in the PC, totally crisped. I mean they looked like a huge(they were like a 10 platter HDD) black brick. But somehow, in less than 48 hours, they had all the information off the drive and back to the dealership. ALL but like 1% of one of 5 drives were totally recovered. So, recoverable, yes, but very very expensive. My advice is next time, to save everything to a old drive, then give it to someone to copy everything to theirs as well. I have probably 4 backups of MP3s out there on either a friends PC, or on others in my house.

Cameron

Another possibility, which worked for an old IBM (DORS32160 If I remember correctly, 2.1Gb SCSI drive dating back to '96). It had a lot of trouble spinning up, and one day, just refused to.

Managed to find another drive on eBay which was dead (head bounce), got it for £3 I think, and switched the PCB over. To this day, that drive's still working!

If you have a common drive, might be worth trying.

You might want to try mounting the drive upside down if it's not already (circuit board up). I was able to copy data off of a failing drive by doing that in the past.

You might go to the webpage of your hard drives manufacturer and see if they provide diagnostic software. I know that IBM, Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital all used to....and the software was free.

Darn it! I got home fully intent on try this, but forgot to put the HD in the freezer. Decided to put it in before I went to bed and planned to get up early to try it out. Well, I woke up late. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif The HD is still in my freezer. Is that a bad thing? Should it not be in the freezer for 20 hours or so? If it's bad I might be able to rush home at lunch to take it out. Would it be worse if I freeze, defrost and refreeze later??? Stupid, stupid, stupid!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/stupid.gif

Anyway, keep the body cold, got it.

When I reinstall it, it would be slave to my boot drive. Should I disconnect my cd and dvd drives and make the HD a single drive on a separate IDE cable instead? Windows XP has the drive letters memorized. Right now I'm missing drive 'D' when I open up Explorer. Would doing the above with the IDE cable complicate matters?

Zelandeth, I don't think I'd know how to do that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

lightshow, I think it was already installed upside down. Would it help if I installed it right side up? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif BTW hanging out of my case, it will likely be on an angle when I try this. Any problems with that?

_mike_, nothing on the website. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Maxtor's site DOES have the software, you're just not finding it.

This might be a good time to try spinrite. Look at grc.com. I have been itching to see if it works as well as it's rumoured to.

There's nothing wrong with having it at an angle during the copy. It will not hurt to leave it in teh freezer till you get home. Repeated frost/defrost cycles may actually be bad for it.

I usually simplify things when trying to fix broken PC's, but in your case putting it on the first IDE channel as a slave should be as good as anything. Depending on several factors, you are likely to get better transfer speeds by making it the only device on the second IDE channel.

Daniell

I think at one time drives didn't like to be run upside down. The last time I checked, upside down was okay, but running at an odd angle wasn't advised. I have a feeling it won't make much difference in your case as you won't be running it that long.

Every manufacturer of hard drives has diagnostic software. Click on support. Any of the diagnostics from any of the manufacturers will probably be able to diagnose your hard drive.

Maxtor's uses a crummy version of DOS that doesn't support a mouse, but it works. You will just have to recall how to tab from field to field.

If you had run a diagnostic a month ago it may have told you the disk was dying.

I only had one drive go bad in the 20 years I've had microcomputers with hard drives, and I have a lot of computers with a lot of drives. I was warned by a diagnostic that it was sick. In fact I ran diagnostics from Seagate, Maxtor, and Western Digital and they all told me to get the data off that drive immediately. It took a week to get and install another drive. In that time XP never saw a problem.

Well, I did buy a Maxtor a year ago that was sick when I got it home.

I'm a real believer in running drive diagnostics periodically. Western Digital has one that you don't boot from floppy or CD. It runs from XP just like any other program. It's hard to find though on the Western Digital diagnostics page. Its the WinDlg10 thing, not the WinDlg11 thing. It installs funny too, but it works.

I read the title and thought oh yeah,one of mine did that. The oil was getting too thin when it got hot to work the hydraulic tappets. I was going to suggest checking cam clearances,end float,is it spring bound on full cam lift,then I read the first post /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif I know jack 54it about PCs except they can be alot of fun to throw out of a window /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
HTH (but I have a feeling it doesn't!) Phil.

There is a virus out that causes this it replicates a bad arm read on a hard drive or a head failure... if you get the data copied off it or dont want to even try ... you can do a fdisk in dos with a windows me boot disk... and delete all partitions and then recreate and format it .. that should get the virus off that drive and out of the boot records ... I have done this before... might not work . but could save ya some money for a new drive...
also try wiggling the power wires or make sure that they are making contact ..I have seen some pc's that will have the 5 pins act up and wiggling them causes them to stablize..