Maxtor HDD Problem

[sparrowhawk]

I have a 500gb external hard drive which has stopped being recognised in My Computer and in Disk Management. I figured I may as well break open the case and remove the actual drive and try it in a hard drive reader I have, which gave the same result. Out of the case you can hear it making a clicking noise, then whirring for 2 seconds and then nothing. This then repeats.

 

I'm fearing the worst but if anyone has any suggestions of how I may be able to recover the data (about 100gb of music), I'd really appreciate it.

 

Thanks

 

Stuart

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

I didn't think I would ever get the chance to suggest this, however it has been proved to work in some cases.

That is to freeze the drive, first wrap it in a polythene bag to prevent moisture building up in the drive, then pop it into the freezer, once fully chilled say for about half an hour to an hour, as quickly as you can connect it back to the reader or adapter, power it up and see if you can open it for long enough to retrieve your data.

If the freezing method doesn't work, then I am afraid the only way to get the data is quite expensive recovery specialists.

Nev.

[LinkindinkinPark]

would't do the freezer trick if I were you,might work for a lazy drive,not this one.

 

either a logical or mechanical fault, diy fixes won't work, try Dataclinic for recovery

[sparrowhawk]

I can't justify the cost that something like data clinic would cost, it's just loads of music that I've accumulated over the years.

 

Might as well give the freezer method a go, got nothing to loose!

 

Thanks for the suggestions.