Did this hard drive fail

[paintballwebs]

A friend of mine has a Dell with an IBM Deskstar hard drive. Whenever you try and boot the computer the hard drive makes a steady clicking noise and a continuous monotone beep. With the Windows setup disk it boots in to setup just fine so I dont think anything else is wrong and I know this particular drive has a general reputation for failure. I was just wondering if that conclusion sounds right. Luckily I helped her with a reformat recently and still had her backed up stuff so not too much was lost. Thanks in advance for any opinions.

Cliff Notes:
- hard drive clicks and beeps when tried to boot.
- computer enters setup fine
- did the drive fail???

 

[suicidalpigeon]

d.e.d. data can be recovered, though.

 

[Jeff7]

Sounds like the classic click of death.
I believe this is the classic click of death. I don't remember what this one was specifically. One might be the predecessor of a head crash, I don't remember which. Either of those is bad, as is what you described.
The Deskstars, particularly the 60GXP and 75GXPs were nicknamed Deathstars, due to their high failure rates, to which IBM never owned up to. I also had a 120GXP and a 180GXP die on me - the 120GXP was of a head crash, the 180GXP was a RMA replacement bearing the Hitachi namesake (still a Deskstar though, IBM sold their storage division to Hitachi), and it succumbed to the click of death too.
I have since sworn off IBM/Hitachi desktop storage products, and am trying to do the same on laptops, though IBM drives are everywhere in that market segment. I have yet to hear of an epidemic there though.

 

[paintballwebs]

how might i go about recovering the small amount of data that was not backed up for the reformat


edit: also that mp3 is exactly the sound it makes... oh well she wanted a bigger hard drive anyway.

 

[Thorny]

Put it in a baggie and stick it in your freezer while you install your other drive. When your ready for the transfer, be quick, the drive will only work for a limited amount of time.

 

[mode101wpb]

I installed one of the new Hitachi Deskstar's recently, T7K250 model I hope it doesn't fail like the old ones, so I've read they fixed the issues and no longer use glass platters.

I've found this page on the old Deskstar failure problem, looks like your data might not be recoverable if this happened as the head crashes and removes all the magnetic coating off of the glass platters.

http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~ken/crash/

 

[paintballwebs]

I didnt think that any data would be recoverable but ill give the freezer thing a try and hope for the best....

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: paintballwebs
I didnt think that any data would be recoverable but ill give the freezer thing a try and hope for the best....

It sounds silly, but I had to try it once and it worked. I was getting the clicks like the second MP3 up there, bios would no longer recognize the drive. I also put some frozen ground meat wrapped in foil on top of the drive while I was recovering the data to keep it cold. I recoved all 60gb of data off of my 80GB drive.

 

[volrath]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Sounds like the classic click of death.
I believe this is the classic click of death. I don't remember what this one was specifically. One might be the predecessor of a head crash, I don't remember which. Either of those is bad, as is what you described.
The Deskstars, particularly the 60GXP and 75GXPs were nicknamed Deathstars, due to their high failure rates, to which IBM never owned up to. I also had a 120GXP and a 180GXP die on me - the 120GXP was of a head crash, the 180GXP was a RMA replacement bearing the Hitachi namesake (still a Deskstar though, IBM sold their storage division to Hitachi), and it succumbed to the click of death too.
I have since sworn off IBM/Hitachi desktop storage products, and am trying to do the same on laptops, though IBM drives are everywhere in that market segment. I have yet to hear of an epidemic there though.

IBM settled a class action lawsuit about them. I don't remember exactly what the value was, but I know I didn't qualify because they replaced my deathstar with a hitachi, which I am still using to this day.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: paintballwebs
I didnt think that any data would be recoverable but ill give the freezer thing a try and hope for the best....

It's worked for me once, not worked once..
you have a 50/50 😉

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: volrath
IBM settled a class action lawsuit about them. I don't remember exactly what the value was, but I know I didn't qualify because they replaced my deathstar with a hitachi, which I am still using to this day.

That class action unfortunately was specifically for 75GXP drives - the dead ones in my hands weren't that line, but they still suffered the same symptoms.
IBM didn't really own up to it easily though - no recall or press release, nothing.