(almost) Failed External HDD

[lopri]

Hi,

Friend's external HDD (USB) is just about dead. He's got no backup of any sort.

The drive makes clicking noise when connected to a PC, then after a while the PC finds the drive (like 5 mins later) and at that point clicking stops. (?) However, the explorer doesn't show the volume, and if I go to the Management console it asks me to initialize the drive. (which I of course would not do until data is recovered)

What's a recovery solution? Thank you for your help.

 

[taltamir]

you can send it to a recovery company for about 300$
or you can try sealing it a ziplock bag and freezing it overnight... then plug it in and copy your important data as quickly as possible (before it fails)... oh, and have a large (10 inchs or so) fan blowing on the drive while doing that. that is actually what data recovery companies try first thing, only if it doesn't work do they take the drive apart and try to fix it.

 

[Gillbot]

i use a usb extension and leave it in the freezer while i copy or ghost data off it.

 

[taltamir]

very good idea... just make sure to seal it in a plastic bag so that it doesn't get condensation and ice when you do that...

 

[lopri]

Thank you both for the advice. I've heard of the freezer method before but I totally forgot about it. I will give it a shot to try the poor soul.

Is there anything I need to be aware of, when connecting to a host system? (to protect the host system, that is)

 

[n7]

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-products.htm

That's what i use at werk every few days.

Works if the drive can spin up...if it's in such bad shape it's not even running, then it's unlikely to happen.

 

[lopri]

Tried the getdataback (FAT/NTFS) but it didn't find the volume. Guess freezer is the last resort.. Thank you all.