Hard Drive not working

Ok.... i dont know what happened but my 2nd HD isn't working anymore..... i unplugged it when i reformatted my C drive, reinstalled windows, plugged the HD back in and it isn't working now.... everytime i start the computer it makes a really scary clicking noise.... then after a couple minutes windows will finally load (this doesn't ever happen when i unplug the HD), and there is no other HD in the My Computer window.... I dont know what to do....

One time i did get it to show up in devices, it just wasn't assigned a leter.... so i clicked populate with set it to E:.... but then it froze up for a couple minutes and then it went away and the computer didn't read it at all....

i dont know what to do, please help, if you got more question for me just ask, i've got a good 130 GB of stuff on that HD and i need it.... please help

 

Cant really understand why unplugging would do this, only thing i can think of would be to check the pins on the hd where the ide cable plugs in, if thats ok, unplug ide cable and fire back up, shut down, hook it back up and try again, seems funny that it would go bad at that particular time. You might also try another power line off of your power supply. ed

 

i think that your HD is dead, coz this strange clicking noise make me think so. i even don't know what to suggest you.

 

I once had a hard-drive in an external USB encloser fail to work and make "clicking" noises . . . it was a cable problem . . . I had somehow bent one of the IDE pins when installing it.

I can't even concieve how that happened, but it did. Have you checked your pins? and the ribbon cable for that matter . . . maybe it was damaged somehow?

It is odd that a secondary harddrive would fail just because of an OS reinstall. I have done that more times then I can count . . . and the worst I have run into is the OS just doesn't "see" it - which is all software related. To me the whole clicking thing indicates something isn't correct with the cables and/or power feed.

Check all the cables . . . one thing to look for with the 4-pin power plug is sometimes one of the feeds will "back-out" of the lead from the power supply.

Hope this is of help to you.

 

ya..... ok.... so im home from school.... messed with it a bit, made sure the cables were tight and all, and now my device manager sees it.... but when i click the "Populate" button so i can access it, it says:

Disk: Disk 1
Type: Unkown
Status: Unreadable
Partition style: Not Applicable
Capcity: 0 MB
Unallocated space: 0 MB
Reserved space: 0 MB

so does that mean my HD is completely dead? how the hell could have of happened???? wtf..... still made the clicking noise at start up, but it wasn't very much at all....

 

What to do if you hear clicking from your hard drive
Simply put, if you hear a clicking from your hard drive, and your computer freezes or takes too long to boot up — shut it down IMMEDIATELY. Your drive has gone bad and will be completely unusable within a short amount of time.

Data can only be recovered by professional data recovery companies. If you attempt to recover yourself, you will damage the drive even more.

Noises that indicate a defective drive.