Need help with external drive

[spartacus_abx]

My external drive spins up,then clicks three times,spins up again,clicks 3 times again,then just sits there,comp not seeing it on my computer,but picking it up when u go ointo management. Is there anything that can be done to recover the data from my drive as it's quite important to me? I'm guessing the drive is on its way out - just hope it's not quite gone yet.

[zman88]

I've heard you could try putting it in the freezer for a few hours, believe it or not .

[bassgt47]

"I've heard you could try putting it in the freezer for a few hours, believe it or not ."

I second that. left my dead drive in the freezer for about 1 hour, reinstalled it and was able to get the data off before it died again.

[zman88]

I think there is also some free and some not free programs that can recover data from HD's. But someone else here would have to confirm that.

[ctal]

Originally Posted by zman88

I think there is also some free and some not free programs that can recover data from HD's. But someone else here would have to confirm that.

Yes there are, but they won't help if the drive has a mechanical problem such as not being able to spin up. Professional data recovery services have sophisticated equipment that can work with the platters directly, but that is very expensive and often is not entirely successful (due to disk damage caused by the failed mechanical stuff).

I was also going to suggest the freezer trick -- go for it!

-- Al

[jaketerminate]

Ive had this happen to me once too, it would start booting up windows then click for a few (like you said) then a blue screen and then it would finally reboot. I simply reformatted the disk and reinstalled windows and we were all good to go. So from this experience your hard drive might not be dead just yet.

[Drufuss]

Well, what i would do is open the case of the external drive and look if anything got loose (disk or controller), look if anything looks burnt, remove the hdd and see if it's working with another controller.

Greetings

Dru

[ctal]

What does it show when you see it in Disk Management? Does it show the proper partition(s)? If you select Action/Refresh in Disk Management, does the indication remain the same, or does it disappear? It could be that Disk Management picks it up during the initial instants when it is spinning up, but it is not visible subsequently to either Disk Management or My Computer after it begins to "just sit there."

Regards,
-- Al

[ctal]

Drufuss raises some good points. I'd definitely be suspicious of the "wall wart" power supply that probably powers the external enclosure.

-- Al

[Drufuss]

Ha typical me, i didn' was already fiddling with details before looking at the most important things. Power supply, this could be a source of trouble for sure.
How is the drive powered? As seperate power supply, of via the USB bus? How many other things are connected to that bus?

Greetings

Dru

[INVALiD]

Is it firewire or USB?
with the right dos drivers you might be able to boot to spin rite
and have it show up.

No I don't have any affiliation with grc.com. I know I've mentioned it before
in a post, but I swear by this little program. It kicks *** as far as HD recovery.

[BoWevil_abx]

I have had external drives do the same thing if the pin setting on the HDD was not correct. Cable select usually works best but you might try slave just to see. Also, if the enclosure is defective it will do the same thing. Your hard drive might not be at fault. Then again, it might be.

[orinoco]

One thing that this could be is that the device is drawing too much power from the USB port meaning that it cannot startup properly. If you have a double headed cable try connecting both the connectors to the PC before connecting the other end to the USB drive.