Please confirm that my hard drive is dead

[NoIdea]

I?m almost positive that my hard drive is dead but I am holding onto hope that the data is salvageable. I do here a click but not sure if it?s the ?click of death?. Here is the story, a while back I bought a used external hard drive from a friend to back up all my files. For about 3 years it worked fine and I stored all my pics and music on it. Then one day I tried to use it and it wouldn?t work the drive would show up on my computer but I couldn?t access the data. It would think for awhile then say disk not formatted and ask me to format.

I read somewhere that it could be my external HD case so removed the drive from the case and I installed the drive in my computer as a slave. Upon reboot windows recognized new hardware found and displayed the drives model name. This brought me hope. I proceeded with the hardware wizard and the drive was installed successfully. Clicked on my computer to go to the drive, clicked on the drive and after about a min the message disk not formatted appeared again.

Aside from bringing it to an expensive data recovery center is there anything else I can do? Is my drive dead? There are a lot of sentimental pictures on it of family that are no longer with us.

I used CrystalDiskInfo and this it what is said about my drive.

Health status : Yellow caution

I get a yellow caution on all of these:

05 Reallocated Sectors Count
C5 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count

The rest show blue colours

I have no idea what any of this means.

 

[Old Hippie]

My favorite recovery program is GetDataBack.

You'll be able to see if it will work before you buy it.

Good Luck!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: NoIdea

I get a yellow caution on all of these:

05 Reallocated Sectors Count
C5 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count

That's a bad sign. It indicates that the drive has had failing sectors and was replacing them, when it could. It indicates that the drive has been failing for some time.

Always have TWO COPIES of important data, you never know what might happen.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: NoIdea
Please confirm that my hard drive is dead

1. Package it up in an anti-static bag. Place it in a box with at least 2" of packing peanuts around the whole drive.
2. PayPal me $41.19 (non-CC).
3. When I receive the payment I'll send you my shipping address.
4. Ship the package to me via the Post Office, Express mail delivery.
5. I'll examine the drive when it arrives and test it.
6. After a reaching a conclusion, I'll repack the drive and return ship it to you via Priority mail with delivery confirmation.
I'll also include my detailed conclusion on the status of your drive.

 

[NoIdea]

I know the thing that gets me is the wife kept on complaining that the pics are not on our main comp that I should copy them over. Needles to say I didn?t listen. So what am I looking at $500 or $1000 to recover. If I pursue that avenue am I guaranteed to get the pics back? What is the success if bring it to a data recovery firm?

 

[Old Hippie]

2. PayPal me $41.19 (non-CC).

Damn Blain, you charged me 75.00! :laugh:

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

2. PayPal me $41.19 (non-CC).

Damn Blain, you charged me 75.00! :laugh:

We're in a deflationary period, sorry

 

[RebateMonger]

As noted, you can try one of the software data recovery programs. If the drive is spinning and mostly reading correctly, you may get some files off it.

Originally posted by: NoIdea
Here is the story, a while back I bought a used external hard drive from a friend to back up all my files.

As I'm sure you realize by now, MOVING your files to another hard drive is not the same thing as BACKING UP your files. If the files are important, have them on at least two different drives or other media.