macmanmike6100

This <a href="http://www.computersbyevco.com/newharddrives/scsifirewire/products/Product%20Info%20MFW60.htm">drive</a> seems to have crashed today. Luckily (for now), I don't think that the heads have touched the platters. On power-up, it spins up but instead of the regular "starting up' sounds, I get a repetitive and fast "click click click CLICK".

On trying it again, it now seems that it only occurs when connecting with the computer...I'm not quite sure what's going on (does this suggest filesystem corruption?). I'm going to let it sit for a while and, hopefully after there is some advice on this thread ;-), will try some things later.

Yes, I have backups, but they are in America and I'm in China. Plus, I've changed some items since then and I don't think the backups are complete. In any case, I want to salvage this drive...do you have any suggestions? Thanks in advance...!

ADDENDUM: Checking the Event Viewer on WinXP, it detected an error during four paging operations prior to drive failure (Event ID 51). This is an external Buslink 60GB FireWire drive...probably an IDE internal but not sure.

macmanmike6100

Problem solved...kinda: According to this page <a href="http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-ibm-deskstar-hard-disk-drive.htm">DataClinic.co.uk</a>, my IBM Deskstar (I opened up the Buslink case to find this) is suffering from the "Deskstar Click of Death". Wonderful. To doubly confirm, they provided audio samples. Yep, I'm pretty sure this is it. I guess I'll just have to hold onto a dead drive for a while.

n0nsensical

Yes, the IBM DeathStar series. I'm surprised it's lasted this long.

pokethebody

if its not one of those mine(unknown) had to much power drained form it and i lost most of my OS

pokethebody

some places r relecing a new type of hards with part flash memory on it to speed up the hard drive($45 a GB wow) and they are barly testing one thats completly "ram" ($80 a GB WOW) that was 4 months ago

macmanmike6100

I wanted to let everybody know of how I was able to get my data off the drive!

Prerequisites:
- My drive still spun-up when powered on. The mechanical problem was a repetitive "clicking" noise, which was likely caused by mis-aligned internals. If the drive is not spinning up at all, you might want to try the "drop on its side from 2-4 inches" method (seriously). Neither of these methods repair non-mechnical failures.

- My drive uses non-fluid bearings for the platters; the freezing solution may make the situation worse by freezing the fluid and disallowing any movement, possibly damaging the motors when they try to rotate something through a frozen fluid.

The Freezing Method
- This is widely published on the Internet, although it's all word-of-mouth. Haven't seen any "official" information on this. Results were anecdotal. However, desperate times call for desperate measures! Self-claimed experts online have also said that there's no chance that it would work, but it worked for me.
- Place the offending hard drive in a Ziploc bag with as little air as possible; this is to help keep moisture out of the bag, and thus provide less of it to condense on the parts of the drive.
- Leave the Ziploc-bagged drive in the freezer for about 2 hours. This is to get it down to very low temperatures and to ensure that it is completely cold, so that it takes longer to defrost once you start using it.
- After it's been in the freezer, you should be able to take it out and plug it into your computer...very carefully. Try your best to keep as little air in the bag as possible; just have the cables run into the bag. I was lucky to have an external drive; if this were an internal drive, I would suggest opening the case and just connecting the wires to the now-external internal drive. Doing this would prevent the dripping of any condensation onto the innards of your computer.
- I was able to run the drive in cycles of 2 hours freezing/30 minutes use. After that I started getting nervous, as the drive started feeling warm. This method also suggests keeping the drive surrounded by ice-packs (or their equivalent in bagged frozen chicken) during operation, to extend the usage time.

Good luck...don't let anybody tell you the freezing method is an urban legend...it worked for me! Plus, if the drive is dead, what've you got to lose?