All kinds of problems...

captainamerica4 · 08-02-2009, 12:38 PM

After reading a lot of posts I have a good idea how to get back family photos, documents, etc. eventually but I have a huge problem before I get there. A few nights ago I ran ccleaner.exe. Soon afterwards my hard drive crashed. After reading existing forums and talking to the IT at work it sounds as if my hard drive (Seagate U Series 9, 120GB)crashed. Someone at work suggested slapping the drive on a desk thinking the scanning arm was stuck, yes the drive makes funny noises. I am not too keen on this idea and thought I would try other options before I risk breaking my hard drive. On the recommendation of my IT I purchased a USB2.0 to IDE&SATA cable. I have hooked it up to my wife's laptop. Eventually it recognizes drives F (my recovery) and G (Local) but I can not access G and I am concerned about F in that I may lose the data I am trying to retrive. When I try to open G there is a production of whirring and clicking, freezing of the "My Computer" for a few minutes, then "I/O device error" message appears. Any suggestions or is the drive gone?

Thanks for your help.

Yes, I was an idiot and did not back up the photos. Yes, my wife was upset.

**raptor_pa** · 08-02-2009, 01:47 PM

CLicking sounds like a head failure. Don't slap the drive down, there is such a thing as 'stiction' but that requires opening the drive in a clean room to get the heads free, and if you are hearing clicking and spinning then it is definitely not the problem.. If you are hearing clicking then it is probably a head issue. Continuing to attempt to spin it up could cause more problems. if the drive doesn't mount then it will probably need pro recovery, could be heads, preamp or platter damage, all of which require clean room recovery.
If you want to continue to try, try scanning the drive with r-studio or getdataback demo versions. You would be better off to connect the drive internally to a desktop than using the IDE cable - talking to the drive in it's native environment without the USB translations would be best. If r-studio and getdataback throw errors trying to scan the drive then it is almost definitely a physical issue.

captainamerica4 · 08-02-2009, 01:53 PM

Wow, thank you for a quick response. I have been running some of the recovery type programs without any success. Most do not acknowledge the G drive. Tomorrow I will have access to a desk top, I'll see what happens. Thank you for your advice!

08-02-2009, 12:38 PM	#1 (permalink)
captainamerica4 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Georgia Posts: 2 OS: XP	All kinds of problems... After reading a lot of posts I have a good idea how to get back family photos, documents, etc. eventually but I have a huge problem before I get there. A few nights ago I ran ccleaner.exe. Soon afterwards my hard drive crashed. After reading existing forums and talking to the IT at work it sounds as if my hard drive (Seagate U Series 9, 120GB)crashed. Someone at work suggested slapping the drive on a desk thinking the scanning arm was stuck, yes the drive makes funny noises. I am not too keen on this idea and thought I would try other options before I risk breaking my hard drive. On the recommendation of my IT I purchased a USB2.0 to IDE&SATA cable. I have hooked it up to my wife's laptop. Eventually it recognizes drives F (my recovery) and G (Local) but I can not access G and I am concerned about F in that I may lose the data I am trying to retrive. When I try to open G there is a production of whirring and clicking, freezing of the "My Computer" for a few minutes, then "I/O device error" message appears. Any suggestions or is the drive gone? Thanks for your help. Yes, I was an idiot and did not back up the photos. Yes, my wife was upset.

08-02-2009, 01:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,859 OS: XP	Re: All kinds of problems... CLicking sounds like a head failure. Don't slap the drive down, there is such a thing as 'stiction' but that requires opening the drive in a clean room to get the heads free, and if you are hearing clicking and spinning then it is definitely not the problem.. If you are hearing clicking then it is probably a head issue. Continuing to attempt to spin it up could cause more problems. if the drive doesn't mount then it will probably need pro recovery, could be heads, preamp or platter damage, all of which require clean room recovery. If you want to continue to try, try scanning the drive with r-studio or getdataback demo versions. You would be better off to connect the drive internally to a desktop than using the IDE cable - talking to the drive in it's native environment without the USB translations would be best. If r-studio and getdataback throw errors trying to scan the drive then it is almost definitely a physical issue. __________________

08-02-2009, 01:53 PM	#3 (permalink)
captainamerica4 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Georgia Posts: 2 OS: XP	Re: All kinds of problems... Wow, thank you for a quick response. I have been running some of the recovery type programs without any success. Most do not acknowledge the G drive. Tomorrow I will have access to a desk top, I'll see what happens. Thank you for your advice!