Harddrive 'click of death' aka Home Harddrive Recovery

[Inimbrium]

Actaully some older SCSI Seagate drives used to go up to 15000 rpm. They had smaller platters than normal so they could spin faster.

[LinkDaHylian5002]

...just like a metronome. (Only this make people cry.)

[wwallender]

to many fliped bits

[dickcheney6]

I don't understand what causes this. If everything is able to move, why is it not functional, is the actual HEAD fried (not the movement) ?

[xBloodXGusherx]

wow. So thats that fucking noise computers make when they start up or take a long time to load something.

[pspking597]

this just happend to my laptop 2 min ago but is fine now

[OoBitEeAaBitEe]

WTF

[Comptekhs]

jaytee50 how did you copy your files did you just copy them individually or copy them all at once to your computer. I was just wondering I was thinking if the files where copied in smaller batches you could recover more without over working the HD. You said you got 90% out of 100 or did you just use some piece of software to copy them all over? I need to recover data off my dead hard drive.

[sonicfan287]

does the freezer trick work on external drives as well as internal ones? bc all the vids ive seen of it have internal drives

[visitile]

just a video of a hard drive in action

[JoshB2561]

will this hard drive still be ok to use?

[Greeder0]

what exactly causes the hard drive to do this?

[snowbell01]

it failed due to dust or a hair or w/e on that thing lol

[ZZSFAN]

I have a game that does the same sound!

It start to spin, then... *tlick* *tlick*

[Darkevil83]

Hey peeps can someone help me diagnose what up with my Maxtor 160gb drive, basically used it as a slave drive whilst noobing away, next thing pc switched off and restarted now i hear the click of death, basically it's not being detected in the bios or windows any ideas? i have done the freezer trick it does stop clicking but isnt detected still grrrr

[MartMart]

My HD died almost 2 years. Giving up hope of ever recovering my 3 years of hard work, I decided, as a last resort before finally throwing my HD away, to give the freezer trick a try. I put it in the freezer for about 1 hour, placed it in my external enclosure, turned it on without any expectations..and for the first time in almost 2 years, it started to spin!! I recovered EVERYTHING except a few small files which caused an I/O error. The drive is still actually running.

[dickkwikkwek]

Yea, that freezer trick is known to work sometimes

[csarivra]

did it make this sound before you put it in the freezer????

[Blaster7492]

WOW^^

[scott93257]

For repairs not being of mechanical failure yes...

[atraktmillyonz]

i have a maxtor black armor external hard drive and its not working plus its making a clikcing noise , could i get my data off of mine by doing this , i dont care about the hard drive i just want my data back , i lost it because i kept taking it in and out the house and i left the hard drive in the car cause i forgot about taking it out for about two days because of me moving from one apt to the next , i have a warranty on it but they said it didnt cover me getting data

[pogodrummer]

hmmm go to a specialized center if ur data is important

[flaviomilano]

what kind of fail is that?

[alexchrisccc]

that sounds like my brothers zune harddrive!

[flaviomilano]

What kind of fail is that? I have this some noise after my laptop gone down. Have somebody a tread to fix it?

[Intelpentium54321]

I think its called spinrite.

[BooTeeFull]

i have a macbook, and i have the same issue, but sadly the mac its not runing, it not reading the HD anymore... ive never heard this before till stoped working, is there a way i can still recover my files?

[LOLDISNEYLAND]

There isn't any vacuum in most modern hard drives. The disk is spinning in air and the head is working in air also. The reasoning behind having air in a hard drive is simple enough when you look at how the head works. The head glides over the surface of the disk when the disk spins up. The head floats over the disk on a fine cushion of air that is thrusted by the spinning disk. Any dust on the disk is usually 'spun off' under high centrifugal force. The dust = death theory is mainly a myth.

[Canmx120]

I'm a firm believer in freezing hard drives. I froze a LaCie 160gb external to recover my programming work I've done for college and it worked like a charm, I had a baggie of ice+salt sit on top of the drive to keep it low temp and oddly enough the drive lasted the 4 hours it took to back it up and its still going! It was completely dead before, it had been dropped, disc'd while writing dozens of times, and wouldn't even be recognized by windows(and clicked) Now it works like new.

[Ficker0180]

what a messenger runs in background

...the "bemm"

[TeamNES1]

I recognize that rhythm... That's how my iBook died. Right now, I'm writing to you on a bigger, better Apple laptop, my 2-year-old white MacBook.

[jenrzzz]

Throw it in the freezer for a day, then try it. No, seriously, it works probably 80% of the time for me. That's typically the second to last thing you try when people don't want to pay for data recovery, though.

[desertman123]

now make it into a speaker

[ddrhero]

Robots are going to look back at this as a snuff film one of these days.

[gryphen08]

I have also heard hdd in the freezer will give it one last leg to backup, I havent tried it myself though to confirm it.

[adythekiller]

What is causing those jumps ? I think it can be repaired. In normal function fragmented disk make that niddle jumps but more stabile

[chris2girardin]

thats the heads reading the hard drive lol.

[snedie69er]

It is how a hard drive works normally when not doing anything. But this drive won't work any more

[mnl1121]

huh? no they don't. not at all. some drives go faster than 7200. aka WD Raptor HDD.

[reditus2]

Drives do spin in air. if you look at a HD, there is a 'breath hole' so the air can expand and contract when the temperature changes in the HD. the hole has a series of filters that filter the air because the air has to have NO foreign contaminants. Eg, dust

[Boeserwolf93]

how could they? in fact they have an air hole for pressure balance cause they could break through overpressure if they hadnt...

[Boeserwolf93]

i would not try it...if the noises are like scrapping, its totally dead, and if u try this trick, it'll be too...

[inachu]

this type of click of death can sometimes be fixed by dropping the hard drive about half an inch high off the table to jiggle the drives free to spin. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't

[fireofdragon2]

depends on the hardrive their is a hardrive by western digital which does 20,000rpm.

solid state drives however dont spin (lol oviusly)

[m3phisto666]

no they don't....

[appcookie]

It's not in a vacuum.

GET IT RIGHT PEOPLE. JEEZ!

Why does everyone think it's in a vacuum?!?!

There's ventilation holes on hard drives for a reason! :/

[MarcusTheReverent]

what is the drive disc made out of?

[oldevil]

Absolutely not ! The drive need a gas in it to make the heads "float" on the surface

[koenie12345]

they dont spin in a vacuum, but a dust free area

[playaspec]

No, they do NOT spin in a vacuum. There is air inside the drive, and a vent in the lid to allow the drive to maintain ambient air pressure inside the drive.

[itzjesusbxtch]

no this would be very hard to do, and the seal on the drive would be very hard to make.

since the disks are spinning, not physically like, flying through air, there is very very little air resistance.

[roflcap]

Mine gets to about 10000 rpm :)

Yes, they absolutely must be in a vacuum as the slightest bit of dust can kill them.

[hbdgaz]

Most drives can't work in a vacuum as a certain range of air pressure is required to keep the heads from crashing into the platters as they spin. Most have filtered "breathing" holes to accommodate changes in external air pressure.

[d1rcwill]

It's filtered air actually. No particulates. I've also heard that it uses a cushion of air to stop the head crashing into the platters. Correct me if I'm wrong ppls, I'm not a HDD tech, just saying what I've heard ;)

[mirabilis]

It doesn't move any air, so no air resistance. :)

[tengahlia]

Hello Jaytee50, my hard drive does a slight clicking like that but in longer intervals and then stops. I wanted to know how did you get your hard drive to mount on your computer? Currently mine does not mount. I really need advice to to recover the info on my HD. It is a Seagate 400. Thanks...

[RayneMarina]

i have a question, my new laptop makes the same noise, and it is coming from the HDD, but it is a brand new laptop got it only 1 month ago, i'm not sure if i have to call the manufacturer while the insurance is still in use or should i wait for the ultimate crash?

by the way it is a lenovo y510, and it is 250G.... anybody has same problems?????

[ddust]

Since China take over Lenovo from IBM, lenovo now really suck..compare to IBM. My boss had one just less than 1month and it broke down already.

[LemonAndYoghurt]

Hello there. My samsung 500Gb made a very loud screeech sound last week, a fe wseconds after I turned it on. It has always been placed in a external icybox hdd casing and needs to be powered up seperately. Never used for transport, never kicked, and the it makes this strange sound. My heart almost failed too! I could copied all data off the drive (moved it to my pc first) and 450Gb copied fine. But my Q is, what the hell happened? pls i need help.

[BadAndUgly]

Try running some diagnostics, most harddrive manufacturers supply a diagnostics tool available for download on their support pages.

Maybe there could be some mechanical problem like platter spindle bearings failing in some way or head misalignment caused by rapid uneven change of temperature.

[iosomewhere]

Did you got any help or got it fixed ? Have a similar problem since a few days :(

[KieferSkunk]

Your drive's bearings probably failed. Screeching, scraping noises are usually due to the bearings. Every manufacturer has a run of bad drives where there's something wrong with the motor, bearings or platter balance, so you may have just gotten a defective one if it did this within the first couple of months. (If you've had it for several years, it may have just reached the end of its useful life.)

[x7turtle7x]

Works.

[nerdy1351]

My IBM Travelstar 6GB had head damage and I was still able to recover all 100% of my data.

Bless its little soul!

[nerdy1351]

My IBM Travelstar had head damage and I was still able to get all my data off of it before it completely died. God bless its little soul!

[necromncr]

One of my WD drives (425MB one) died on me the same way. I saved 95% of the data by smacking it into the desk gently whenever it stoped working. Dont try that, I got lucky.

[OpticalHaze]

how many years was this in use before the death?

[Joseph7649]

Once I had a hard drive to that to me it was a Seagate 40GB 7200RPM, I took the HD and put it into the freezer for 1 hour and I was able to get all my data off the drive! Then the next day the drive was dead for good!

[unclefingers]

ya, thats an oldschool tech trick, still do it all the time but only when necessary.

[sagnbaby]

i have the click of death on mine how can i recover the data?Its really expensive!! I have really impotrant info on the hd.

[Dragonart100]

$500-$2500 if you hire a professional hard drive recorey technician

[therealromster]

Always wise to backup before that happens!

[laynesamba]

this guy nows:

Once I had a hard drive to that to me it was a Seagate 40GB 7200RPM, I took the HD and put it into the freezer for 1 hour and I was able to get all my data off the drive! Then the next day the drive was dead for good!

[halladere]

That`s a Toshiba 40GB 5400RPM. I Have the same harddrive and same failure.

[SeargantSwashy]

wont dust and tiny air particles disrupt the hard drive?

[Superdude688]

its spining too fast for anything to collect on it really. it would only damage it if you planned on running it like that for more than an hour or two and you had a really dirty house. the only time it gets ruined is while it is sitting there off with the cover off, then crap can collect on it

[laynesamba]

yes. he said it was Redneck Harddrive Recovery

[cheetawolf]

yes.

[produKtNZ]

Nice save :)

[jaytee50]

FYI:

-this is a 40GB laptop drive.

-the drive was dying, but opening it killed what was left.

-forcing the spindle to turn is not a good idea.

-clean rooms are a myth, the data recovered just fine, the drive didn't instantly rust, or get dust all over platter.

[jaytee50]

the spindle was stuck and a customer needed as much data as i could get.