hdd click of death :(

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Sp32, Dec 1, 2008.

  1. Sp32

    Sp32 Private E-2

    Hi I have 2 hdd's which do the click of death I want to know if there are anyways to fix it... 1 is a sata and other is IDE was setting up a new mobo and it decided to break both hdd's now I am using a different computer but have like 1 250gb broken sata hdd and a 60gb broken IDE drive

    Anyways of fixing this without spending like £800 getting the heads fixed?
     
  2. dlb

    dlb MajorGeek

    None that I know of :cry You can try the old 'freezer trick' where you leave the HD in the freezer over night then QUICKLY hook it up and try to rescue the data. If it works, you typically have 10-20min before it has to go back in the freeze for 4-6 hours.... I accept no responsibility for any further damage to anything that may occur from the freezing of your HDs. Personally, I haven't done it, but I know folks that have, and it occasionally worked for them... I saw it work, so it's an option.... I guess.....
     
  3. Sp32

    Sp32 Private E-2

    bah, tried that already... never worked once for me apparently it only works for old hdd's I am going to give up now anyway

    Thanks for trying to help buddy :)
     
  4. dlb

    dlb MajorGeek

    :cry
    :(
     
  5. Appzalien

    Appzalien Staff Sergeant

    The freezer trick works for hard drives which fail to spin because their shaft and bearings go bad. "The click of death" which is typically associated with Western Digital drives, happens when the heads fail to find the intial section of the drives platters hence the clicking as it tries over and over again. The freezer trick will not work on the click of death. During my searching on the subject I never did find a solution though I saved my WD drive in case I get the opportunity to swap out the circuit board on the bottom. Thats the only option I can come up with to try, short of a costly recovery company. But I have never heard of swapping boards to fix it and I would assume someone had done it and I would have heard of it during my research into the problem. The click of death has been around for a long time and occurs soon after the drive is out of warranty but seldom before, so I do not buy Western Digital anymore.
     
  6. Sp32

    Sp32 Private E-2

    hmm thanks for that information one of my hdds are western digital and I shall never buy one again..
     
  7. gimpster123

    gimpster123 Bring out the Gimp.

    as Appzalien mentioned, there are companies that will take apart your drive and recover the data. This is quite costly- but if its critical data, at least it can be saved.
     
  8. Appzalien

    Appzalien Staff Sergeant

    Don't not buy Western Digital because I say so, others have had no problems and swear by them. I had two, one failed soon after the warranty was up the other was sold in an older PC. At the time I was buying a new brand each time to discover which was best and ended up prefering Maxtor. Unfortunately for me Maxtor sold out to Seagate although they're still available they get harder and harder to find.

    the order in which I will buy drives
    Maxtor
    Seagate
    Samsung
    Fujitsu
    Hitachi
    Western Digital

    I have never owned a Fujitsu or Hitachi drive, so they are at the bottom of the list only because I have no opinion. Its often reported that drives go bad in cycles no matter who makes them, so one month it might be Maxtors that fail and a few months later it WD and then later yet its Samsung, so its a shot in the dark really, and is more dependent on when you buy than what for the most part.
     

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