I’ve got this 3 year old hard drive that came with this PC. It’s making noise for a long time now. I also have a NEW and BIGGER hard drive. I put all my important stuff on the newer and bigger hard drive. All my FLASH projects and other projects.
Now GUESS which hard drive died today?
YES That’s right the NEW back up hard drive died and the stuff doesn’t exist on the old hard drive anymore because it was just too big.
So it turned out the NEW hard drive was doing the noise.
Now two questions:
1) is there ANYTHING I can do to get my files back? Under “My Computer” the new hard drive just won’t be displayed anymore
2) Is there any program where I can check hard drives? So I can check if there are problems with my remaining hard drive and better get a new one.
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
24th November, 2007 at 07:31:00 -
Does the hard drive still start spinning when you turn on your PC? If not, recovery is probably going to be a lot more difficult.
That isn't surprising. New HDD's are pushing the limits of what they can fit, everyone wants more space and cheaper prices. A good quality 120gb drive costing the same as a 500gb drive is going to last a lot longer.
I've got an old 60gb that I raped and destroyed by using as a HD video scratch disk. Poor bugger.
If its making a clicking noise, throw it in the freezer for a day in a plastic bag. Take it out, plug it in and turn it on and get files off of it as fast as possible.
Hmm, a HDD is a very precise piece of kit. Throwing it into a freezer where certain components will expand more than others is probably the worst idea I've ever heard.
"Hmm, a HDD is a very precise piece of kit. Throwing it into a freezer where certain components will expand more than others is probably the worst idea I've ever heard."
Well, when you freeze things they contract, not expand.
"If you have a failing electronic component, it may work fine when cold, but dies once heated. If it’s a mechanical problem, cooling down the drive will allow the lubrication in the mechanisms to thicken giving a few minutes of usage to recover data before failure."
I can also speak from witnessing the power of the freezing hard drive first hand. I've had four friends with hard drives that had the clicking of doom, and they've all recovered data by putting the hard drive in a sealed plastic bag inside a freezer for 24 hours. It will not bring the hard drive back to life forever, but its usually worth anywhere from 20 minutes to an hours worth of recovery time.
Freezing is a pretty widely used recovery method as far as I can tell.