Recovering data from a 'Clik of Death' drive

Hi all,

have been visiting this site for a while, but never registered until today! Great site! Thank you for that!

Question:

I have a WD SATA drive which I exchanged from my box as it had the 'Click of Death". Is there any software/ freeware/ shareware available which could recover some of the data? I did do back ups but have a file which changes frequently during a week which I would love to recover,

thank you in advance,

Rainer

 

Then If it is not completely dead,--If the old hard drive was only clicking, and did not die completely,you may be able to read it from the new drive.
Go - right click My Computer, click manage, go to disk management, and click on the old drive, and you should be able to read off it, , and copy what you want to the new drive.
If it is completely dead, nothing will help, other than specialists (ouch)
However there are ways to try to get stuff off, but I will come back.:wave

 

Put it in the fridge for 3 hours or the freezer for ahlf an hour before you try the recovery. (In a plastic bag)

Studio T

 

Let us know any results - I know Studiots suggestion might sound strange, but quite a few experts have done this and managed to get the hard drive to spin up , one last time and get important data off - sounds unauthodox, but can/could work , if you are lucky.

 

Thank you all for the suggestions - I will try them this weekend.

As for the freezer - nothing sounds strange to me anymore! confused I will give it a try without first, and then with freezing.

Will write back

Rainer

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

Well,

I tried both suggestions, but the HDD just keeps on clicking! It is probably beyond , but any other suggestions would be appreciated



Rainer

 

Unless it is done by data specialist, the only other way that could work,- but if it does not your disc is finished - is to hold the hard drive a few inches (100mm, or, so ) flat - above a flat surface, and drop it flat onto the surface.
It has been known to enable one more spin of the drive to get data off - but it is a bit unprofessional, and your drive , if it does not work, is then definitely scrap metal.

 

baklogic,

that is too funny! Besides the fact that the drive is scrap metal at this time anyway, I have no problem dropping it from 100mm. As a matter of fact, if that doesn't work I will take it apart since I never seen the inside of one confused

I will post my results