dropped a hard drive

[rebelwarlock]

is there any hope for recovering the data off of a hard drive that i dropped? it makes an odd clicking sound now when the computer powers on and refuses to detect.

edit: someone suggested that i try freezing it but that didn't help. any thoughts?

[Mr.Guvernment]

not liekly - the heads probably got dug into the platters - YES even though it was not moving.


the clicking is usually either

1. the heads touching the platter
2. not enough power getting to the drive so it turns on and off.


either way it is not something you can likely fix and is internal - you could go spend upwards of $1000 for a professional to try :(

[SavageBasher]

General rule of thumb: Don't drop anything that has wanted data on it. :D

[TimoneX]

He's telling the grim and ugly truth of it. You can probably write the data off and I hope you had a backup, but as such there's no harm in trying. Usefull tools to try out include findntfs, ntfsdos, & testdisk.

[rebelwarlock]

nothing on there worth hunting down a data recovery specialist...it just sucks to lose data. oh well.

[TollhouseFrank]

freezing it may work.... or do what is called the 'drop test'... drop it from about 6 inches in height onto a carpeted floor, stick it in your system, and it SHOULD work for a fewminutes (long enough to get critical data off).

However, these methods assume the drive is pretty much dead and you need a quick 'jumpstart' of it to make it work long enough to get your stuff off of it.

[TimoneX]

Sorry bro data loss sukks. I lost a whole lot of data last month when two 160Gb drives in a raid 0 stripe croaked. Not a very merry x-mas all in all.

[Dermen]

That sucks man. I know just how you felt when you went to hook it up, wondering if it will even work or not. I asked for 1 of my 80GB Hitachi drives for x-mas and after I unwrapped it x-mas morning my mom told me she dropped it on the tile floor in the kitchen. Luckily my drive worked, and is still working 13 months later.

[el]

sometime I have been able to throw a clicker in a good box as slave and read most of the data off.

Other times I hear clicking noise and that is it!!! Depends on how bad it was. Try an RMA.

[marc1]

at this point replace the drive

[marc1]

Losing info is painful.
The most probable way to get your info back is to play with it off and on. Cool it and jump it as a slave. With luck you may find a time window of a few minutes at a time.
Prepare for a new one though...