Q. It sounds like theres something loose inside the hard drive. when ever it starts also, my computer completely freezes up and never unfreezes. what do i do.
A. When a drive starts making noises it did not make before, then it is in the process of dying if it has not completely died already. SOME drives are designed to have "loose" links inside so when they are OFF, the drive will not be damaged if it is dropped. A LOT of 2.5" laptop drives will rattle if you shake them, and usually on the label it will say that it is OK to hear a rattle when the drive is de-energized. When a drive is in operation it is normal to hear the head positioner move the heads, but normally it is so soft a sound you have to be right on top of the drive to hear it but if you put your finger tip on the drive, you will feel it shake as the positioner does its' thing. As the drive mechanics wear, the noise the head positioner makes gets louder and louder as the spindle bearings allow it to wobble more and more. Once it starts, it is a downward increasing spiral. The more the positioner wobbles, the more wear on the bearings, which means even more wobble which means more damage and so on until it literally pounds itself into self destruction. As this is happening, the electronics that makes it all work is reading data, and can "sense" the heads are no longer tracking with the data written on the disk, so the drive will periodically "reset" itself to bring the alignment back in line, but that is a temporary fix. The more wear the more read errors, and the more times the drive does a reset untill finally, the wear is so bad the heads can no longer track well enough to read anything and the drive is completely dead. It seems from your description the drive has reached the end of the line and can no longer read enough data to load the operating system. Here is something you can TRY. Most drives are mounted flat, with the electronics side down. Reorient the drive onto it's side and see what happens. Or even, upside down. It may not work in the position it is in NOW, but it MAY operate in a different position for a short period of time. You MAY be able to run the drive long enough to make a backup. You HAVE been backing up your data on a regular basis, right? Anyway, what you can also try is to install the drive as a 2nd drive in another machine. Again, reorient the drive to the side or upside down. You MAY be able to access the drive to recover some data. Visit http://www.download.com or http://www.tucows.com and search for file and data recovery programs, or hard disk diagnostics. Both sites have a wealth of free and shareware programs available. No matter what you do, it is likely the drive is dead, or so close to dead you may not be able to recover anything. There are data recovery companies out there, Ontrack systems is one, who will recover things but the price is steep, REALLY steep. I have a commercial program from Ontrack which I got through a contract job a couple of years back which at the time cost $200. For Ontrack to recover the data, would run around $2000. What they do is literally remove the drive platters from your drive and install them into another identical drive. One other thing, along the same lines, that you can do. Replace the drive electronics board with one from another identical drive, if you have one available, or from a drive in the same family which may be larger capacity. The key is that except for the number of heads and platters, the drives are otherwise identical, just different capacity. The board from a bigger capacity drive will work, but a smaller one will likely NOT. If you use a board from a 60gb drive on a 40gb drive it will appear to have 20gb of bad sectors. The other way round, and you will have 20gb you won't be able to read. It MAY be the drive electronics have failed and the guts are OK. The board swap may allow you to read the data to make a backup. Then, swap the boards back again, of course. OK, so that about does it, what you can try... NO guarantees! YMMV...
How do i get data off a bad hard drive?
Q. I have a dell laptop running vista home premium.
My hard drive crashed and i got it replaced, i was wondering how to get data off my old hard drive.
I have plugged the old hard drive into an external hard drive case and connected it to my computer via usb.
It appears in 'my computer' but when i click on it i can not open it and it sometimes freezes my laptop.
Is there and good hard drive recovery programs that are easy to use? or any other tips to help me?
My hard drive crashed and i got it replaced, i was wondering how to get data off my old hard drive.
I have plugged the old hard drive into an external hard drive case and connected it to my computer via usb.
It appears in 'my computer' but when i click on it i can not open it and it sometimes freezes my laptop.
Is there and good hard drive recovery programs that are easy to use? or any other tips to help me?
A. The positive side seems to be that your HDD can still be detected. But if you are not an expert (I certainly am not)...do not attempt to recover the data yourself as you might end up doing more damage. Take it to a data recovery service. They might be able to help you as your HDD is not completely dead, but be warned it is not cheap. Hope my 2 cents helps.
Dropped hard drive how to recover the data?
Q. I dropped my mobile hard drive a while ago. I thought it was dead but when i put it back via usb it worked fine. After a while when i put it back the laptop recognized it and saw the drive but then i cant access it through. Everything seems normal, no clicking sound or anything.
just want to add. the hd enclosure is working fine. My brother put his mobile hd to my enclosure and it worked but when i put mine back in the problem is still there. i was wondering if i freeze it will it work?
checked it again by plugging it through usb. saw the drive, accessed it and gave me a message cannot read corrupt file. aargh! is it dead? why can i still see it?
just want to add. the hd enclosure is working fine. My brother put his mobile hd to my enclosure and it worked but when i put mine back in the problem is still there. i was wondering if i freeze it will it work?
checked it again by plugging it through usb. saw the drive, accessed it and gave me a message cannot read corrupt file. aargh! is it dead? why can i still see it?
A. Just use your backups.
Data recovery specialists (who probably can get your data back) are pretty damn expensive so unless it is really important and you don't keep backups you are probably just going to have to accept that everything on that drive is lost.
Clutching at straws you might be able to try taking it out of the case and putting the hard drive itself into a computer using the PATA or SATA port on the drive just in case the part that was damaged was the USB interface but that's unlikely to work (it's probably mechanical damage to the hard drive). If the external hard drive was a laptop drive you'll need to find an adapter to put it into a desktop computer (can be bought) or get a second hard drive case from the computer manufacturer assuming your laptop can use one.
Data recovery specialists (who probably can get your data back) are pretty damn expensive so unless it is really important and you don't keep backups you are probably just going to have to accept that everything on that drive is lost.
Clutching at straws you might be able to try taking it out of the case and putting the hard drive itself into a computer using the PATA or SATA port on the drive just in case the part that was damaged was the USB interface but that's unlikely to work (it's probably mechanical damage to the hard drive). If the external hard drive was a laptop drive you'll need to find an adapter to put it into a desktop computer (can be bought) or get a second hard drive case from the computer manufacturer assuming your laptop can use one.
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