Help with broken hard drive please

[merrimackjay]

So my friend has a Compaq computer from around 2000 or so. She woke up one morning to find it had frozen in the middle of the night, and it hasn't really worked since. She would turn it on and scandisk tells her that it found an error on drive C that it can't fix. Sometimes it would boot into safe mode, sometimes not. So she gave me the harddrive to look at and now all I can get it to do when I plug it into the power supply of one of my computers and turn it on is make clicking noises... kinda sounds like it can't even find the platter or something, I dunno. She said it would make clicking noises for her sometimes too.

Any idea what would cause a hard drive to make clicking noises like that? My bios reports the primary master as "not detected" too. I have all the jumper settings correct.

Thanks in advance,

-J

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: merrimackjay
She said it would make clicking noises for her sometimes too.

Any idea what would cause a hard drive to make clicking noises like that? My bios reports the primary master as "not detected" too. I have all the jumper settings correct.
-J

Hard drive is most likely dying. Start backing up what you can.

 

[merrimackjay]

That's the thing... I can't even get the hard drive to load. My bios won't even detect it. The only thing it does now is make clicking noises. Is there any hope?

 

[Lonyo]

Stick it in the freezer in a sealed bag to geet moisture out, leave it for ~3 hours, then stick it in your machine and see if it will work.

Sounds dead, the above will allow you to get any important stuff off the drive, if it works. You need a new drive it would seem.

 

[merrimackjay]

For real?

 

[modedepe]

Yeah, sounds like it's dead. Try the freezer method Lonyo suggested to get any important data you have on the hard drive copied onto a new one.

 

[tenoc]

Predicting that the freezer trick won't help. Sounds too far gone.

Go to the manufacturers web site to see if it's still under warranty. In 2000, most had a 3 year one.

If so, RMA it.

 

[Sammy5000]

I second the Freezer Trick (ziploc bag, in freezer for 1-2 hours, plug it back in).

I have tried it twice, and both times, I was able to get at least 20-30 minutes of access time so that I can start backing up the stuff I needed most.

 

[zephyrprime]

I predict that the freezer trick won't work also.

 

[Mday]

recover any data. get her a new HDD, help her install OS, or recover from some recovery disc by compaq.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"when I plug it into the power supply of one of my computers and turn it on is make clicking noises... kinda sounds like it can't even find the platter or something, I dunno. She said it would make clicking noises for her sometimes too."

If it's circa year 2000 and a Compaq there is a possiblity it's a Western Digital 15 gig drive. Compaq got a BAD batch of these and ended up replacing a bunch of them. I had one, it started clicking and they came and replaced it.
At any rate, the drive is toast and will get worse and finally die. Like someone elso said, try the freezer trick (put in plastic bag first) and stick in in you computer and copy every thing off it as fast as you can.
If you don't want anything off it it's likely no good and way out of warranty unless your GF kept up the Compaq warranty.

 

[merrimackjay]

Wow Macro2, you are exactly correct! Its a 15gig Western Digital Caviar, Model WD150AA. And she bought it in October 2000.

I'm gonna go stick it in the freezer and see what happens in 3 hours........

-Jay

 

[StraightPipe]

you might try runnign the disk utility if you still can boot, but they usually dont say much but your drive is broken. (some have a repair option, but I'm not sure how/if it works)

please let us know if the freezer trick actually does anything.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"Wow Macro2, you are exactly correct!"

How could you have doubted me? ROTFL....

Basically I knew because it happened to me. All my vast computer experience ya know...hehe

 

[merrimackjay]

Well, the freezer trick did not seem to help much in this case. I plugged it in (primary slave, regular hard drive is primary master, nothing on secondary) and turned on the computer. It clicked for a minute or so, then stopped clicking. But it won't boot. On the screen when it detects the stuff on the primary/secondary master/slave, it hangs for a while, then lists my regular hard drive as primary master, and "10.09K11 WDC WD150AA-60BAAB0" as the primary slave... but then it doesnt go on to detect the secondary stuff, it just hangs.

Damn.

Now the hard drive is getting condensation all over it too!

So I guess all data is lost right?

 

[Macro2]

RE:"So I guess all data is lost right? "

Not necessarily but the cost of recovering it may be prohibitive. From what Compaq told me that clicking is the heads clipping into a platter...but I do not know that for sure. Maybe you can take it apart an tell...after you've given up on it.

 

[merrimackjay]

Every picture this girl's taken from her digital camera is on this hard drive, and she never backed any of it up.

How do I take apart the hard drive to examine the platter? Special screwdriver or something?

 

[tenoc]

DON'T TAKE IT APART!

Sorry for yelling, but see if you can RMA it first.

You do know what an RMA is, right, as in free replacement?

 

[sharkeeper]

IF the drive has data that's worth a few kilobucks, send it to a professional. NEVER open a disk enclosure in your home!

If the data isn't of value, check to see if the product qualifies for in-warranty replacement.

If so, you will at least get another drive without spending too much (price of postage to send bad drive to WDC) cash.

-DAK-

 

[merrimackjay]

The web site says her drive fell out of warranty in 2001

 

[merrimackjay]

So when you say "send it to a professional" to see if any data can be grabbed from it.... how do I go about doing that, and how much does that cost?

 

[scorpioLP]

Ontrack

It's expensive. I looked into it a few years back and I think it was a couple hundred just for them to look at it.

 

[Sammy5000]

Originally posted by: scorpioLP
Ontrack

It's expensive. I looked into it a few years back and I think it was a couple hundred just for them to look at it.

Yep. I had a friend pay $1500 bones for data retrieval.

 

[merrimackjay]

Damn. Well, thanks to everyone who helped in this thread.

Much appreciated!

 

[Bruck]

I know that a drive that is physically dead is very disturbing, and when it won't recognize you have no luck recovering without physically opening it (or having a professional do so) but IF you have a drive that is loading, but the data is gone, you can use a program called R-studio, its a great program, cost me 80 bucks, and it saved my butt, i was able to recover 50gb of data that would have taken me months to replace, let alone my entire digital photo album. So when the drive does load (like in another instance) keep that in mind, i too was thinking of paying someone hundreds just to look at it, but I ended up doing the data recovery myself.