Hard Drive Failure

[dobbin44]

Help
Maxtor SATA 160GB HD has failed.
It has photos on that I would like to retrieve.
anyone help on this?

 

[Naqv]

When you "failed", what do you mean, as the term is a bit vague.
If it is completly knackered, then kiss your photos goodbye, unless you want to pay thousands of pounds to data retrieving companies, but as I said, "failed" is a bit vague.

 

[Gunman Vash]

Are you sure its that expensive?
Oh and just a friendly suggestion to steer away from maxtor for reliable storage

 

[Stiggy]

Help
Maxtor SATA 160GB HD has failed.
It has photos on that I would like to retrieve.
anyone help on this?

Please give as much information as possible.

As said above, if it has really physically failed then you have lost you data unless you want to spend a lot of money.

If your PC just won't boot, you can usually mount the disk inside another PC and move the data over. I bought a USB cable with an IDE connector on the end for this purpose, but you can rig up the disk inside another PC fairly easily.

 

[dobbin44]

The drive is used as a backup, it made a few clicking noises then died.
The PC no longer sees the drive and I've tried it in another pc and it seems completely dead.
2nd time one of these drives has failed.
Shall stay away from Maxtor in future
Recovery prices are prohibitive
Will have to learn lesson next time.
Annoying thing is that I have 2 external HD's and I should have copied the files as a precaution
Thanks for your help

 

[drummerjohn]

The drive is used as a backup, it made a few clicking noises then died.
The PC no longer sees the drive and I've tried it in another pc and it seems completely dead.
2nd time one of these drives has failed.
Shall stay away from Maxtor in future
Recovery prices are prohibitive
Will have to learn lesson next time.
Annoying thing is that I have 2 external HD's and I should have copied the files as a precaution
Thanks for your help

I had same problem. Its likely mechanical failure. Quite often its a bearing failure through wear. My resolution was to freeze the HD over night. Double bag it - leave it in freezer over night. Plug it into a spare IDE on my pC and recover what I could before the drive warmed up. I had to do this 7 times to recover 60Gb of data.

If you are wondering how it works? Tolerances. Metals reduce size and increase tolerances at low temperatures.

 

[dobbin44]

I had same problem. Its likely mechanical failure. Quite often its a bearing failure through wear. My resolution was to freeze the HD over night. Double bag it - leave it in freezer over night. Plug it into a spare IDE on my pC and recover what I could before the drive warmed up. I had to do this 7 times to recover 60Gb of data.

If you are wondering how it works? Tolerances. Metals reduce size and increase tolerances at low temperatures.

Will give it a try (thanks)

 

[Ender4000]

I have the same problem, in that my hard drive has failed and now makes clicking noises and when connected the pc won't boot.

Did you try the freezer method? Did it work?!

(I'm getting sorely tempted to try the window method - i.e. chuck the damn thing out the window!)

 

[Uridium]

I come across failed disks on an almost daily basis; often a tap on the top of the disk with a screwdriver handle or similar as it tries to spins up will kick it into life for long enough for the OS to see it.

 

[The Dude]

^^^ What he said ^^^


If a gentle tap doesn't get results, a night in the freezer is next.


- The freezer trick works well for stinky trainers too, while you've got the freezer bags out..