IDE Hard Drive motor clicking-- any chance of getting my data off?

[Jim Bancroft]

I have a 13 GB Western Digital IDE hard drive, manufactured in 2000. Last
week I noticed a clicking sound when starting up the PC, and it turns out
it's the hard drive, which is still recognized by the motherboard (most of
the time), but isn't bootable....the drive clicks, I hear it spinning, then
about 20 seconds later it clicks again and spins once more ( by that I mean
the rapid clicka-clicka-clicka of a healthy drive), almost like it's a car
trying to warm up. It never boots however.

I've gone into DOS and tried moving the contents to another drive, but have
had no luck. DOS won't recognize the drive any longer.

I know it's probably too late for this thing, but are there any tricks that
might buy me an hour, just long enough to pull my files off? I've tried
holding it in various positions (vertical, horizontal) when starting up my
PC, but that didn't help, though it clicked less in some positions than
others.

I'm willing to open the drive if there were some good that could come out of
it, though I'd have to think that would simply put a final nail in the
coffin. If you know of any home remedies that might extend the life even a
bit, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.

-Jim

 

[NSM]

| I have a 13 GB Western Digital IDE hard drive, manufactured in 2000. Last
| week I noticed a clicking sound when starting up the PC, and it turns out
| it's the hard drive, which is still recognized by the motherboard (most of
| the time), but isn't bootable....the drive clicks, I hear it spinning,
then
| about 20 seconds later it clicks again and spins once more ( by that I
mean
| the rapid clicka-clicka-clicka of a healthy drive), almost like it's a car
| trying to warm up. It never boots however.

My guess is that it is constantly resetting the head to track zero to try to
find data. It could be the controller that is bad so if you could find an
identical drive you could swap the boards. Other than that there are
services that do this but for big bucks I believe.

N

 

[Wayne Tiffany]

Are you sure it's spinning? I have seen it more than once where a drive
doesn't actually spin up. If that's the case, sometimes you can get it to
start by rapping on it as you turn on the power. You can also try the quick
twist as another method. If either method works, get what you want
immediately as there is no future guarantee.

I've also heard about putting it in the freezer for a time and then pulling
it out, hooking it up, and booting then. Personally I would be concerned
about moisture condensing on the discs, but I've never tried that one.

WT

 

[Wayne Tiffany]

I also had a cable go bad once, so swap that out to try if possible.

WT

 

[Brownz]

I've also heard about putting it in the freezer for a time and then

pulling
it out, hooking it up, and booting then. Personally I would be concerned
about moisture condensing on the discs, but I've never tried that one.

WT

That's BMX wheels surely...... ;-)

 

[NSM]

| Are you sure it's spinning? I have seen it more than once where a drive
| doesn't actually spin up. If that's the case, sometimes you can get it to
| start by rapping on it as you turn on the power. You can also try the
quick
| twist as another method. If either method works, get what you want
| immediately as there is no future guarantee.

There was an infamous 10 Mb external hard drive sold by Radio Shack that was
so bad they recalled them and used them as store drives. On Monday, you had
to drop them about a foot onto the desk to get them to run at all!

N

 

[Art]

All the post are relevant to the problem. Indeed try another one of the
power connections and a new IDE cable to see if the drive will respond. The
freezer idea has been know to work but again, how valuable is the data on
the drive?? Seen folk remove and reinstall the pcb onto the drive and have
some positive results but it sounds as if the problem is internal, probably
in the head positioning mechanism. Agreed, do you indeed hear the drive
"spin up" when applying power to it? Physical thumping has been used, that
is having the drive connected and lightly tapping on it or rotating it while
holding it to see if you can "kick start" the rotating motor. Again, how
valuable is your data, the best cure may be to send it to one of the data
recovery compaanies to recover the information for you.

 

[Jim Bancroft]

Incredible as it sounds, the quick twist method worked for me. A couple of
rapid left-rights after turning on the power, and lo and behold, I had a
working drive! This, after trying at least ten reboots the night before
while holding the unit in various positions, with no luck. I've since
copied the contents to another drive (using Symantec's Ghost 2001 product)
and will restore to a replacement today.....many, many thanks!

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

[shameless plug snipped]

Not "big bucks."

Odie

Sig withheld so as not to offend.

That line was put there exactly for the reason to offend.
You just didn't use the Sig because some newclients cut a quoted Sig.
So you just moved your precious Sig into the message.

At least your Sig made clear which interest you have.
Now you shill anonymously for your own company.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

[shameless plug snipped]

Not "big bucks."

Odie

Sig withheld so as not to offend.

That line was put there exactly for the reason to offend.
You just didn't use the Sig because some newclients cut a quoted Sig.
So you just moved your precious Sig into the message.

At least your Sig made clear which interest you have.
Now you shill anonymously for your own company.

Chill out.


Odie

 

[Chaos Master]

Wayne Tiffany puts out:

I've also heard about putting it in the freezer for a time and then pulling
it out, hooking it up, and booting then. Personally I would be concerned
about moisture condensing on the discs, but I've never tried that one.

This actually seems to work, but it's not 100%.

[]s
--
Chaos Master®, posting from Brazil.
"People told me I can't dress like a fairy.
I say, I'm in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!"
-- Amy Lee

The Evanescen(t/ce) HP: http://marreka.no-ip.com

 

[James Sweet]

Wayne Tiffany puts out:


This actually seems to work, but it's not 100%.

I've had it work once and suggested it to someone else who also had it work
once, it's certainly not a cure all, but for last resorts it's not a bad
thing to try.

 

[NSM]

| I've had it work once and suggested it to someone else who also had it
work
| once, it's certainly not a cure all, but for last resorts it's not a bad
| thing to try.

Supposedly it sometimes works for stillborn babies as well - alternating
from hot to cold water. Go figure!

N

 

[Art]

Congrats Jim: Thankful that you wre able to actually recover your data.
Cheers

 

[L. Fiar]

I have a 13 GB Western Digital IDE hard drive, manufactured
in 2000.
Last week I noticed a clicking sound when starting up the PC,
and it turns out it's the hard drive, which is still recognized
by the motherboard (most of the time), but isn't bootable....the
drive clicks, I hear it spinning, then about 20 seconds later it
clicks again and spins once more ( by that I mean the rapid
clicka-clicka-clicka of a healthy drive), almost like it's a car
trying to warm up. It never boots however.

I recently suffered similar problems with the system I am on now, HD
clicking intermittently.

I found that the HD power connector was the problem, and swapped it for
one of the unused ones. No problems since then.
I have also seen a CD drive suffer the same poor connections problem in
another system, causing it to intermittently fail.