Hard Drive in death throes?

My wife's hard drive (IBM 40 GB, 4 yrs old), started to run slowly. At first I thought it was the vid card, but I noticed the HD was beeping and clicking all the time. I told her to back up everything...she did...on her shared files .
Anyway her HD had a coronary. I opened the case and gave the HD a tap with a screw driver and it booted up (albeit very slowly). It was constantly beeping and clicking as if it were seeking something. I ran a test and it said the HD had an uncached speed of less than 2 MB (should have been over 30 MB). I thought I'd have time to copy files, but it died 2 minutes later. I tried tapping again but to no avail.
Now all it does is beep and click as the Bios starts but that's as far as it gets. I tried to boot from the Windows CD but Windows can't find a HD. The bios or Windows doesn't recognize that there is a hard drive present. I can feel it spinning and clicking (maybe it's just in a coma?).

Besides throwing it out or spending hundreds of dollars to get her pictures, music and contacts, is there any other option? Any advice / ideas would be appreciated.


Windows XP Home SP2
AMD Athlon 2000+
768 Mb DDR RAM
Gigabyte GA-7DXR+ mb
IBM 40 GB ATA 7200 rpm (currently in a coma)

 

I have my computer, but I use a SATA HD / controller. I don't think they'd be compatible?

I could use my daughter's Dell, but I'd have to wait till she leaves the house. If she caught me opening her computer she'd freak!

What do you have in mind?

 

I already tried the freezer thing. Living in Florida....caused a gallon of water to condense on the HD after 2 minutes. I'm sure there was water inside as well (not a good thing).

 

I am actually having to freeze drive at the moment to discover if I can access dead HD, so here's a freezing tip. Take out the HD and place on a cold surface and allow to cool down to room temparture, then wrap in static bag and other water proof bags then place in FRIDGE, leave there for a couple of hours then take out and check for moisture in bags, place in different bags THEN put in freezer. This will lessen the chances of creating condensation. Good Luck.

 

Thanks...I'll give it a try. The condensation problem occurs after I take it out of the freezer.

Is the point to actually freeze the unit then gradually thaw it before re-installing? OR, are you supposed to reinstall it right out of the freezer?

I also tried hooking it up to by daughter's computer. I changed the jumpers so it would operate as a slave, but no luck. The computer didn't recognize a second IDE drive. It ckicks and beeps. I can hear and feel the drive spinning, but I guess the arm is jammed or something.

 

As far as Im aware freezing probably won't help here. It generally is a last resort on an old drive where the plates have stuck as it causes the metal to shrink slightly in the drive and unsticking it. From what you say the drive is 'spinning' so I doubt freezing will help.

Also its something as a last resort and not something I can really reccomend at all.

Matt

 

I guess I have to throw in the towel. I will however try to open it and see if I can un-jam it. I know it's supposed to be done in a "clean room", but:

It's not worth hundreds of dollars to retrieve the data.
It's dead anyway.
I've always wanted to open up a hard drive.

Thanks everyone for the help / advice! Not what I wanted to hear, but I've learned a valuable lesson and I hope everyone who has read this thread will learn something. BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!!! You never know when your hard drive will crash!

 

YES!!!

i have done that also, but it was with a hammer.

 

As matt chug says the freezing is a last resort, mine having Failed Diagnostic test so had nothing to loose. Computer did recognise it but was unable to access AND this was my backup drive. It is now winging its way to Maxtor for replacement.