External Hard Drive - BROKEN!

ILOVEDOGS · 11-10-2009, 06:01 AM

Help! External hard drive 3.5 purchased 11 mo's ago is now clicking and not being recognized by my laptop. A friend who is computer savy took it apart and said it's the hard drive! I'm about to purchase an external hard drive enclosure, to put the brokenn drive in to see if it works. I just need to recover irreplacable photos & files for a few min's. I read somewhere that putting the hd in the freezer for a few hrs may enable it to be read temporarily. Any other advice - quick fix kind of stuff? Help!

aurelius2000 · 11-10-2009, 06:21 AM

You said he tore it apart....I hope you dont mean the Hard Drive itself. If he did, you wont be able to recover any of the photos. As far as recivering any information, I can say you could send it in to the manufacturer. They have the software that is needed as well as a dust-free environment. This is why i get an extended or 1 year warranty.

**raptor_pa** · 11-10-2009, 06:51 AM

Manufacturers DO NOT do data recovery. Seagate owns a data recovery company, but they charge for the recovery. If the hard drive is an external, another external enclosure is not going to make any difference. Freezing is NOT recomended except in very rare cases, such as a seized spindle bearing or motor, there it can free up the bearing for a few minutes, and we are talking a few - 2 to 3 minutes is usually max. The problem with freezing the drive is that moisture will condense on the platters and freeze into little ice bergs. Since the fly height of the heads is less than half the thickness of a human hair, it doesn't take much moisture to freeze into an iceberg size chunk of ice. If the heads hit one of these, then the head can be ripped loose from the Head stack, and cause severe platter damage, effectively grinding the data surface into dust.
Clicking indicates a couple of potential problems, none of which are repairable at home or with software. Head or preamp failure, firmware corruption, or damage to the Service Area of the disk. This will probably need professional recovery. The local computer shop, or the big box electronic guys who drive VW's are not the place to go. Since the disk is out of the enclosure, what is the make and model of the the drive?

aurelius2000 · 11-10-2009, 07:34 AM

I meant to say that they do repairs so far that i last knew. Sorry for the confusion. But raptor is right.

aurelius2000 · 11-10-2009, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aurelius2000

You said he tore it apart....I hope you dont mean the Hard Drive itself. If he did, you wont be able to recover any of the photos. As far as recivering any information, I can say you could send it in to the manufacturer. They have the tools necessary to repair the drive as well as a dust-free environment. This is why i get an extended or 1 year warranty.

11-10-2009, 06:01 AM	#1 (permalink)
ILOVEDOGS Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1 OS: XP	External Hard Drive - BROKEN! Help! External hard drive 3.5 purchased 11 mo's ago is now clicking and not being recognized by my laptop. A friend who is computer savy took it apart and said it's the hard drive! I'm about to purchase an external hard drive enclosure, to put the brokenn drive in to see if it works. I just need to recover irreplacable photos & files for a few min's. I read somewhere that putting the hd in the freezer for a few hrs may enable it to be read temporarily. Any other advice - quick fix kind of stuff? Help!

11-10-2009, 06:21 AM	#2 (permalink)
aurelius2000 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 204 OS: Windows XP SP3/Windows Vista SP2	Re: External Hard Drive - BROKEN! You said he tore it apart....I hope you dont mean the Hard Drive itself. If he did, you wont be able to recover any of the photos. As far as recivering any information, I can say you could send it in to the manufacturer. They have the software that is needed as well as a dust-free environment. This is why i get an extended or 1 year warranty.

11-10-2009, 06:51 AM	#3 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,883 OS: XP	Re: External Hard Drive - BROKEN! Manufacturers DO NOT do data recovery. Seagate owns a data recovery company, but they charge for the recovery. If the hard drive is an external, another external enclosure is not going to make any difference. Freezing is NOT recomended except in very rare cases, such as a seized spindle bearing or motor, there it can free up the bearing for a few minutes, and we are talking a few - 2 to 3 minutes is usually max. The problem with freezing the drive is that moisture will condense on the platters and freeze into little ice bergs. Since the fly height of the heads is less than half the thickness of a human hair, it doesn't take much moisture to freeze into an iceberg size chunk of ice. If the heads hit one of these, then the head can be ripped loose from the Head stack, and cause severe platter damage, effectively grinding the data surface into dust. Clicking indicates a couple of potential problems, none of which are repairable at home or with software. Head or preamp failure, firmware corruption, or damage to the Service Area of the disk. This will probably need professional recovery. The local computer shop, or the big box electronic guys who drive VW's are not the place to go. Since the disk is out of the enclosure, what is the make and model of the the drive? __________________

11-10-2009, 07:34 AM	#4 (permalink)
aurelius2000 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 204 OS: Windows XP SP3/Windows Vista SP2	Re: External Hard Drive - BROKEN! I meant to say that they do repairs so far that i last knew. Sorry for the confusion. But raptor is right.