How To Recover Data From A Broken Hard Drive

How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive
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18. May 2007, 3:09 Uhr

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Pablo Garcia
If you are reading this article you are probably desperate,

but before you panic let me tell you that there is hope,
and there is probably more hope than you think. Even if
your hard drive has an internal mechanical malfunction,
Data backup and recovery
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data can be recovered without having to send the hard

drive to a data recovery service. Yes! you heard right, Im
sure you have come across articles that will tell you how
to recover data from a damaged partition, you will find a
ton of those on the web, but when your hard drive starts
malfunctioning none of those articles are going to help
you solve your problem, This article will.
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What is GEEKYPROJECTS all about?
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gathering and documenting interesting projects.
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Corrupted file system
RSS Posts
If the hard drive gets detected by Windows and can be accessed but you do not see any data inside, or you get a
RSS Comments
message saying that the drive needs to be formatted. You probably have a corrupted file system in you hands.
The solution for this is a good file recovery software. Ive tried many, and my choice is Recover My Files from
GetData. Many of the recovery suites out there claim that they can recover data and they probably can, but can
Meta
they find everything that you want to recover? Most likely not! This software can. But dont take my word for it,
download the free version from their website and give it a try, you will see what Im talking about. The free
version is a demo so it will not allow full functionality but, it will let you see what it can recover and will even
let you recover some small files. This software is included in my article: Best Data Recovery Software.
The software does have its drawbacks. If your file type is not on their list it basically cant be recovered. If you
want to recover a file with an uncommon extension that is not on their list you are out of luck. Their list is
extensive though. Make sure you run the complete File Search and not the Fast, as the later is basically
Monthly Archives
September 2011
August 2011
June 2011
worthless. The complete will give you more than you need, even stuff that you erased from your hard drive years
May 2011
ago. It will take a long time depending on the size of the hard drive. The program will not allow you to install it
April 2011
on the same hard drive where the data needs to be recovered from for obvious reasons. So be prepared to install
the software on a secondary drive like a USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive. There are also a free alternatives
March 2011
which work as well or even better than Recover My Files. If your disk read my article: How To Repair A
February 2011
Damaged Partition or MBR. If you are unable to recover the damaged partition but still want to recover your files,
January 2011
read my article: How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software.
December 2010
Clicking noise of death
October 2010
If your hard drive is making the common clung clung clung sound your head are having trouble reading
September 2010
the contents of the drive.This is one of the worst problems you can have since the arm of the drive is not
December 2009
functioning properly and therefore cannot read the disks inside. As some of you might know this is not repairable,
at least not at home, Hard drives need to be opened in dust free environments, and by specialized personnel, so
November 2009
do not even attempt to open it if you want your data back!!!. Many people will just give up at this point and send
May 2009
hard drive to a data recovery service. However, before you do that and spend an arm and a leg, there is
March 2008
something you can do. I have written an article just for this: How To Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is
Damaged
May 2007
April 2007
Hard drive does not get detected
Recent Comments
If the computer does not detect the hard drive, or the computer just does not want to turn on when the hard
24.09.11, 18:03: Best Data Recovery Software - Top 10 List

(from Kelsey)
drive is connected to it,you might have a bad hard drive board. This is the big circuit board located at the
bottom of your drive. These easily replaceable boards tend to get damaged over time due to the heat generated
http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-from-a-broken-hard-drive/[10/22/2011 5:08:39 AM]
22.09.11, 11:17: Setup a Clonezilla Server on Ubuntu (from

Cory)

by the hard drive itself. I will tell you how to replace this board with the following solution:
There are a number of places on the web that will sell you these boards. If you cant find it or you are a cheap
bastard you can always resort to eBay and buy a used hard drive with the same model number as yours,remove
the board from the used drive, and use it on broken one. This will probably cost you less than purchasing the
board alone. If your hard drive is old it makes more sense to buy another hard drive, on the other hand if the
hard drive is new you are better off buying the board. These boards run around $50 each. If you decide to
purchase another hard drive or the board alone,make sure you are getting the exact same board! I cannot
stress this enough. You can have drives with the same brands and specifications with slight variations on their
board and consequently on their firmware, if this is the case the board will not work, so make sure you are
getting exactly what you need before pressing that buy now button!
Hard drive gets detected but still does not work

If Windows detects the hard drive but it cant be accessed, wont give you the option to format it, or its
properties.You probably have dirty contacts on your board.Usually when this happens you do not hear the
famous clicking noise of death noise, but rather a repetitive rrrrrr rrrrrr sound, as if the hard drive is reading
the same data over and over, or you do not hear any sound at all. It is important to mention that this behavior
does involve the computer detecting the drive but DOES NOT involve the clicking noise of death. To solve this
problem try the following:Remove the main board from the bottom of the hard drive and clean the bottom
contacts.That board that you see underneath the drive is actually sitting on top of un-soldered contacts. Many
Hard Drives operate at high temperatures, and this tends to melt the circuit boards coating. When this happens
this coating will spill over these contacts, and since they are not soldered their dirty metal surfaces will no longer
touch. To solve this, remove the screws from the board and flip it. You will see a row of contacts usually in more
than one location.Rub the surface of the contacts with a pencil eraser, just as if you were erasing something
you wrote. This will actually clean those contacts better than any other method. Screw the board back in place
and try it. (If your hard drive happens to have pin connectors rather than flat ones, disregard this tip and buy a
new board.)
Clicking noise of death (Last Resort Solution)

This trick will actually
work 60% of the cases, so
you do have a good
probability of getting your
data back. I have to warn
you that after freezing
your hard drive there is
also a good chance that
the hard drive wont work
ever again, therefore this
procedure should only be
attempted as a very last
resort.
1 Place the Hard Drive
inside a Zip Lock bag and
put it in the freezer for
about 2 hours.
13.09.11, 22:35: Windows Won't Connect to the Internet Corrupt Winsock Fix (from Chris)
13.09.11, 07:31: How to Install VMware 7 on Ubuntu 11.04
(from Cyrano)
10.09.11, 04:35: How to Recover Data Even When Hard
Drive is Damaged (from Prashant)
(from Pablo Garcia)
magnezyle)
mansoor)
07.09.11, 09:22: How to Format a USB External Hard Drive
for Linux (from wpteddy)
(from Cyrano)
2 After that take it out and connect it to the computer as fast as you can so that it does not have time to
warm up. Make sure that you do not remove the hard drive out of the bag and that you open it as little as
possible when connecting it to the power and data cables, so that outside air doesnt come in and create
condensation on the drive.
3 - Turn your computer on, look for your data and take it out as fast as you possibly can. Time is key here
because you do not know if that drive is going to ever work again. Make sure you do this on a fast computer that
does not take to long to boot up, if possible connect the hard drive to an external USB enclosure so that you do
not waste time with the computer booting up. Also make sure you know the exact location of your data; is better
if you go to straight to the folder rather than using Windows search utility, as searching the drive will heat it up
faster due to the amount of work the arm will have to make. Drives usually work for a few minutes and stop
working once they heat up. So hurry!!!
4 If after freezing the hard drive and connecting it to the computer you are still not able to access it and you
still hear the noise, hold the drive in your hand and, without taking it out of the bag, tap it with your knuckles on
one side to see if this releases the heads, you obviously have to do this while the hard drive is powered on and
connected to the computer.
Final Thoughts
If none of these tips work for you and you still want your data back is time to send your drive to a data recovery
service, there are number of those on the web, I have never actually tried one, but some of them will charge you
a flat fee regardless of the problem. However, these services will not guarantee your back all of the time, in fact
most of them regardless of what they claim, will just have a 75% to 80% success rate. There are some things you
just cant recover from, like an arm scratching the whole surface of a plate. Best thing is to back up your data
regularly. I suggest you read my article on building your own NAS server
*** Here at GeekyProjects we have been receiving hard drives for a while from all over
the world and recovering their data in exchange for donations to the site. (We even
received one from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan once!). However, lately our focus
has shifted towards the website itself and we no longer have the time to continue with
the service. Nevertheless, we have decided to share our knowledge with the public in a
series of articles, The following are the links to some of them:***
How to Recover Data Even When the Hard Drive is Damaged
How to Repair a Damaged Partition Table or MBR
Best Data Recovery Software Top 10 List
How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software
How to Retrieve Files From a Dead Computer

How to Recover Your Files When Windows Wont Boot
Hard Disk Data Recovery
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www.stellarinfo.co.in/DataRecovery
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Related Posts :
How to Recover Your
Best Data Recovery
How to Repair a
How to Recover Data
Files When Windows
Software - Top 10 List
Damaged Partition
Even When Hard Drive
Table or MB...
is D...
Won't ...
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comments feed for this post
473 comments:
Pablo Garcia, 3. September 2011, 17:40
Hi Judah: It might be a necessity. That is the problem with buying the PCB board that it has to be
exactly like yours including firmware, etc.
Judah, 3. September 2011, 13:32

I want to verify that Im at the end of my rope. I got the blue screen of death one day and could
not boot the laptop up again. It said did not have a bootable device. I did drive diagnostics using
bios utilities (HP laptop) and it got to 40% and told me to replace the drive. The drive is a
Western Digital. I bought a new drive and an external enclosure. When the drive spins up in the
external enclosure it starts to read and then stops and tells me to reformat. It will even try twice
sometimes, but if I go into disk utilities it does not recognize any drive except my replacement. I
downloaded Recover My Disk and it does not see the drive. I tried putting the drive in the second
slot. The bios looks like it recognizes there is a drive but when I attempt to do diagnostics it just
sits at zero. Because of the position of the drive (board down) it makes clicking noises while in the
laptop. When I use it externally I put the board up and dont get any noise except when it
terminates attempt to read. The drive does continue to spin. I have not tried replacing board or
freezing the drive. Should I bother? I have congregational financial data, so I have to recover (I
was using my backup drive for another purpose, wont do that again :( ). If I freeze can it still be
recovered if it does not work?
Dimitra, 27. August 2011, 16:38

Thanks very much for the answer.
I hope that Racuva or Photorec will work!
Thanks again!
Pablo Garcia, 27. August 2011, 16:18

Hi Wahida: Again Provided you hard drive is healthy you can use Recuva or Photorec to recover
your files, Both programs are free and reliable.

Hi Malama:
In order for you to be able to access your files you need to log into Windows 7 with Administrator
rights and take ownership of the folder you are trying to access.

Hi Dimitra
Sounds like you have a corrupt filesystem. Use Racuva or Photorec to recover your files.

HI Akashlina:
If you see the drive as a drive letter in windows try using Recuva or Photorec to recover your
files.

Hi Martin, never heard of that before. But a quick search in Google returned this:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/files-on-external-drivehave-changed-to-shortcuts/695db4cc-645f-4bd1-85c7-41671457fe11
Malama, 27. August 2011, 8:46

Hi
My computer had a problem of NTLDR IS MISSING However i tried to correct the problem but
wasnt successful. i then decided to recover by connecting the HDD to the other computer but also
was able to succed. It tells me that Access is denied Is there any other solution that you can
help me to recover the data?
Dimitra, 26. August 2011, 12:04

Hello!
I m desperate! I have an ADATA 500GB external hard drive, which I used with my desktop pc
(windows xp), I bought a new laptop now with windows 7, at first the HD worked fine, sometimes
when I was connecting it with the laptop, a message will pop that was suggesting a format, but as
everything was working fine, I ignored it. Yesterday all of the sudden (or maybe not), my hard
drive gets detected by Windows and can be accessed but I don t see any of my data inside and I
get a message saying that the drive needs to be formatted. If I do format, I ll lose all my data,
right?
Is there anything that can be done at all?
I read about software recover my files, does it works?
Please, if there is any idea or suggestion will be more than welcome and much appreciated.
Akashlina, 26. August 2011, 5:26

Thanks for writing such informative post. My Transcend 320GB external hard drive just stopped
working. The device is being recognized by windows but I am getting error messages like cannot
open drive, format drive to use it, drive is corrupted etc. It had almost 150-200 gb of digital
pictures and movie files. Could you please suggest which of the data recovery s/w should be
useful to recover the digital pictures (thats all I care about)?
martin fabram, 25. August 2011, 15:57

hiall of a sudden all my data in my hard disk turned into shortcutsneed help on how i can get
my data back..thanks

Hi Peter, its possible although I have never heard that before. I would suggest you connect the
drive directly to a desktop computers SATA / IDE interface, then transfer you data using
Windows.
wahida, 24. August 2011, 4:03

Dear sir,
Im using my external hard drive Buffalo 500GB anti-shock to store all my movie and photo.
Recently my HDD unable to save some photos and when i tried to connect to my netbook,it no
longer recognise my HDD.
I did tried on a different PC which sees the drive displays it in the directory but doesnt recognise
it a having any capacity or files it is simply a shell. Device manager still reads the drive
properties however no data.
I have spent ages collecting the data, vidoes, music, photos etc. on my external hardrive and i
was wondering what i should do to recover that data ..
Please..please..please.. help me :(
Peter Neski, 22. August 2011, 18:10

My problem is that My WD My book usb port is loose in the case,I took the drive out ,But trying
one type of case for the drive didnt work because the WD Software on the drive caused problem
for the case not showing up on my Computer,The tech guy said it wouldnt work with that case

Hi Remy:
Try another cable they are extremely cheap. You can get one in deal extreme for $1 with free
shipping.
Remy, 21. August 2011, 11:47

Pablo,
I still havent had a chance to take the external apart and attach it as a slave but I noticed
something in my inspection. It looks as if my cats have been chewing on the usb cable. The
external still makes the windows recognizing something is plugged in noise which makes me
believe the cable is still working. but yet the drive still does not show up and the drive still
whirls and clicks. Is it possible because of the very badly damaged cord that perhaps its not
getting enough power? Should I bother trying to buy a cord and replace it, or should I just assume
that it makes the Windows plugged in noise and therefore is fine?

Thanks for all your help!
shane, 21. August 2011, 6:56

Hi pablo,
Thanks for your reply, im going to try and source a new board this week, I shall keep the thread
alive.
cheers
Paulie, 20. August 2011, 15:04

this might be a dumb question, but what should i use to clean the contacts?

Hi Paulie
Dont appear but they might be. These boards have a clear coating that can spill over contacts
when the board gets to hot. I would try cleaning them anyways, it wont hurt, (provided that you
are properly grounded of course)

thanks for the reply. the contacts dont appear to be dirty or have any dust at all.

HI Paulie
It might be a bad board or dirty contacts in the board, have you tried removing the board and
cleaning the contacts? the ones underneath the board and the ones that connect to the sata and
power cables.

Hi Shane
If the computers BIOS cant detect the hard rive, no program will. Is the hard drive making any
noises? Is it completely dead? If it is you might have a bad board.

thanks for this post. if i understand you correctly, it sounds like i may need a new hard drive
board, please tell me what you think
-i have a wd external hard drive; it is a few years old.
-for the past few months i have had to constantly plug in and unplug the power and/or usb cord
for my cpu and ps3 to recognize it.
-recently, it stopped being recognized at all. the power comes on, but it does not connect to the

cpu or ps3.
-i purchased a docking station, and my cpu acknowledged the station, but when i insert the hard
drive, it does nothing. it doesnt run.
any thoughts on what you think i need to do? i really need the data on my hard drive. thanks in
advance.
Shane, 18. August 2011, 2:48

Hi,
I have a 500GB seagate internal HDD that has windows vista on it and loads of data im trying to
get back. It cant load windows vista anymore. after calling Hp support they told be i have a dead
HDD. so i went and purchased a new 500GB HDD and installed XP on it (working fine), i also got
some extra sata cables so i could recover some data off the so called dead HDD, to no avail! The
setup wont detect the seagate drive, and the get-data-back program also cant find it. however i
can hear it making some noise so somthing is going on in there!! any ideas on how i can get my
data back??????
Cheers,Shane
Robert, 15. August 2011, 7:00

hey ive got a seagate 2tb external expansion hard drive and i have dropped it, my computer now
does not recognise it and the hard drive itself just beeps, im not real good with the technical side
of things. any help is greatly appreciated

Dimetri:
A partition is a section of a hard drive. Most hard drives have a single partition while others can
have many. If a hard drive has two partitions for example you will see two drives instead of one.
But that is besides the point here. The partition contains your file structure, if that structure is
corrupted then the files you recover are probably not going to have their original names or be in
their original folders, as this information got corrupted. An external hard drive is just an regular
drive inside an external enclosure. (this is explained in the article)

HI Remy:
I suggest taking the hard drive out or its enclosure and connect it directly to a desktop computer
SATA or IDE cable. Then read the part of my article titled Hard Drive Developed Noise on its
Own.
Remy, 14. August 2011, 15:20

I have a maxtor external hard drive Ive had for a long time. I just recently bought a new goflex
to replace the old maxtor. I havent had a chance to move the data over and this morning I
noticed my maxtor wasnt showing in the drive list and its making the clicking noise. Awfull
timing. Its never been dropped or had any problems. The power light goes on and it spins and
clicks and windows makes the noise as if something has been connected but the drive never
appears in my computer? What do you suggest? I was thinking of trying to stick it in another
enclosure or to my computer as a slave just to get the data off of it. Is it possible to connect one
backup to the new one and just move the data? Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Rajkumar
Reading your comment I can see that the reason the BIOS is not detecting the hard drive due to
internal damage, so you probably wont be able to recover anything on your own. The BIOS needs
to detect the hard drive in order for any program use it.
Rajkumar Shrestha, 11. August 2011, 1:04

I have seagate 320 gb hard drive. firstly its has a problem of i/o when i checked, after a few days
when i try to join it fall in floor and now cannot see my hard drive in bios and any partation of
that hard drive. when i connet to the computer its vibrate and after long time it seems like to be
silence. Do u have any Idea, how can i recover me document from that hard drive
Dimetri, 10. August 2011, 0:22

I see how in the pictures its a regular hard drive, Im talking about an external harddrive if there
is a differnce, and thanks for responding so quickly, I am very bad when it comes to this stuff
also what is a partition?
-Dimetri

Dimetri:
If you your partition is in good condition you should be able to boot and do the same things you
were able to do before. When you make a raw copy of a hard drive you are coying
A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y everything even the blank space, this is why you need a hard drive of the
same size or bigger to recover the data.

Thanks for the reply, will I be able to run linux and windows on the same computer?
-Dimetri

Hi Dimetri
Read the section titled Hard Drive Developed Noise After it Was Dropped. With that method you
can make a raw copy of absolutely all the contents in your drive.

Hi Pablo, a while back my seagate external hard drive fell and now it makes a beep noise and its
light flashes, I tryed freezing and my computer made a tone like something connected but it
showed up as a usb controller, do I have to take it to a data recovery service?
-Dimetri
David, 7. August 2011, 16:59

Hi Pablo thanks for the update and telling us about it. I wish I knew which part you added.
For my case, in the meantime I bought a 320GB internal drive to get my laptop usable again
(priority #1 for me), and in the meantime while I googled my problem I found a site called
datacent and they told me that the heads of the drive needed to be replaced (under clean
atmosphere etc) so I either replace it, or their fee to retrieve the data was around 1000 CAD.
Thats quite steep.
The thing is, from reading your guide it could very well be the contacts/overheating (I sure know
how many times my laptop was so hot I could not hold it on my lap, or suffer actual burns),
however the problem occurred when the laptop took a minor bump (it took harder ones in the
past without problems).
I will buy a screwdriver to remove the board and follow your advice, but wanted to have your
opinion about this datacent. :)
Thanks again for the help to the community!

Hi Joe:
Glad to hear you were successful. If you keep the hard drive cool it should not happen again.
Joe, 6. August 2011, 19:49

Thank you a lot for this helpful. I tried one of repair methods and problem was solved, My
Seagate external hdd 1TB,its still under warranty but i can not find wheres i keep the document,
maybe on the bin? Mainly, i use for storage documents,software,movies, music and moves it, room
to room for watch movie in there.Last couple days, it started reading bad from time to time and
last night stopped respond completely (undetectable). I removed it from the case and took the
hdd out and put it on Desktop,its sometimes deteched, sometimes none, but it is not
Accessible.Then I search on Web and found this side, and did CLEANING THE BOARDS
CONTACTS,after put its back WOW,yes, it working as normal now. Dont know hows long, it
happens again? But at least,i can copy and transfer all my important documents to other HDD.
Once again, thanks a lot.

Ok everyone!
I updated the article. It should now answer many of the questions that keep coming up.

Hi David:
I am reorganizing the article so that people can understand it better, I will post the new version
tonight.
David, 5. August 2011, 14:27

Love the site, but I dont know if one of two options will work for me. Im not sure which I should
try:
My laptop took s light bump and froze, then I saw the dark blue screen saying an error was

detected, and shut off. When I turned it on I got the black screen with white text letting me
reboot, run diagnostics etc. Apparently the hard drive cant be found, it advises me to reassess it
(or some other word that sounds like it:).
So I remembered I had cables (from an ext hard drive crash incident) bought to attach naked
hard drives (out of their shells) and I removed my hard drive (WD 5000 BEVT 75ZATO) and
hooked it up with the cables to one of my pcs. As soon as I plug it in, the hard drive starts to
show signs of life, it vibrates, I hear one click or two when I attach it. No weird sounds other than
the vibrations. The PC takes a while to recognize something was attached, one of my two pcs
even recognizes the model, but none will show it in My Computer or even let me safely remove
hardware.
What should I do to access this and copy out my very important files?
Thank you in advance! :)
Jessica, 4. August 2011, 23:39

My hard drive died. I took it to the local computer shop and they worked on trying to recover my
data. They could not. They said the problem is that the disc is not spinning. Would this mean
none of these steps would work to help me get my info off the hard drive? Am I out of luck?
Bashir, 4. August 2011, 19:39

I love this post!! Thanks in advance :)
Nathaniel, 3. August 2011, 17:36

I dropped my 1TB external drive; it make the clicking sound of death. Windows wouldnt recognize
it. Someone suggested running it in Linux, and it worked! Not without a bit of hassle, but I ran off
of a knoppix Live CD and copied from the external to my internal and saved 50 gigs of files so far.
Apparently, Linux will accept sloppier file systems than windows, and instead of failing it will
go to a backup and still work. Worth a shot to those of you with this problem.
ME, 3. August 2011, 3:13

thank u pablo

Hi Alex:
It is very hard to tell from here what is going on with your drive from here. You can try cleaning
the contact with an eraser, it wont hurt just make sure you are properly grounded so that the
board does not get damaged if you static electricity. However first I would check the hard drive
to make sure it is in good condition (it does not have any bad sectors, etc. ) there are free
utilities on the web for this purpose; check your hard drive manufacturers website for this. If the
hard drive has mechanical failure or bad sectors, try that ddrescue (the Linux method) because
you do not know how much time your hard drive has left; it might be about to die. Sometimes
hard drives are affected by the heat they produce, so it help if you try to keep the hard drive as
cool as possible during the operation. You can do this by flipping the hard drive upside down, so
that gravity helps if the arm is close to the plates and putting a 125mm case fan on top to keep it
cool. Sometimes just doing this helps you recover all the data without the need of imaging. Hope
this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Hi Me:
You are in the best situation possible, you are getting a message from Windows that means that
your hard drive is still accessible, it might not even be fine. All you need to do is take copy the
data to an external hard drive. Read this article:
http://geekyprojects.com/data-recovery-2/how-to-recover-your-files-when-windows-wont-boot/
Alex, 2. August 2011, 15:04

Hey Pablo,
Amazing site. Before I found it I was about to freak out (I had lost the same info two years ago on
an external drive, went through a costly recovery process, and now lost it all again on the new
one).
So heres my situation. I know youre more familiar with PCs than with Macs, but maybe you can
still help. I have a CMS 500 gb external hard drive, formatted for mac. It doesnt make any weird
noises (unlike my old broken drive), doesnt have the click of death it just wont mounton
either of my macs (it used to). I ran disk utility (a mac feature), and clicked repair drive. It said
it was unable to repair the drive. So heres my question. Should I open the casing and try cleaning
the contacts/replacing the board? If so, how do I power/connect my hard drive afterwards?
Or should I forego opening the casing and use that linux method on
http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-even-when-hard-drive-is-damaged/ ?
Thanks! If I somehow manage to get my files back, I will absolutely give a donation to this site!
ME, 2. August 2011, 0:09

windows canont find . Make sure you typed name correctly, and then try again. to search for
a file, click the start button, and then click search

Sounds like a corrupt partition. Use Recuva to get your files out. If Recuva does not get
everything, use Photorec. It will be wise to make a raw image of the hard drive using DDrescue
before attempting anything, just in case the hard drive is suffering from some kind of mechanical
failure or is developing bad sectors, since you never know when it might die.

Hi Me:
Well what does the error say?

Hi Manuel:
You need to go into the BIOS of the laptop and see if the laptop recognizes the drive and displays
its correct size. IF it does then use DDrescue to get the data out.
Manuel, 1. August 2011, 10:25

Thank you a lot for this helpful, I hope, notice. Ill try one of repair methods. My problem is quite
different. My hard disk is undetectable. I remove it from the laptop and the laptop recognises the
absence of hard disk. When I insert again into the laptop, no message appears. I think the Hard
disk is dead.
ME, 1. August 2011, 7:44

i plug in my external mass storage device my folders are shown and files are still in it but when i
try to access them an error message shows and i wont be able to access the folders
what can i do ?!
Pablo Garcia, 31. July 2011, 23:25

Hi ulujm:
If you connect the hard drive directly to a computers sata or ide cable (I am talking about a PC
here not a MAC) and the compute BIOS detect the hard drive and reports the correct size. Then
use this method:
http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-even-when-hard-drive-is-damaged/
ulujm, 31. July 2011, 13:54

hi ok here my problem. my external HA make a spinning roaming sound. Its not detected by my
computer (PC) noanymore. I try to use a universal sata/usb adapter. no success. I try also to plug
it on a mac no success. I put in a freezer, no change. still the spining sound. what can I do. Best
buy charge you $100/ 10GB. I have around 300GB so I cant afford.
How can I have my HD recognized?

Hi Leana:
I am not familiar with MACs, sorry.

Hi Magnus:
Install a data recovery software on your main drive, not on the affected drive. Try Recuva first
which will give you your files back with their original names. If you still feel that you did not get
all your files back, then try photorec.
Leana Rosetti, 31. July 2011, 11:00

Hello Pablo,
I have a Mac and was in the process of uploading data from Seagate time machine when I
disconnected it without stopping the upload and ejecting it. I know, totally stupid. Now when I
connect the time machine, it is not detected, or it comes up asking me if Id like to upload

everything on the computer to what it seems to think is a blank time machine. Is there anything
I can do?
Thank you so much.
Magnus, 31. July 2011, 5:45

Hi,
I have a TOSHIBA laptop (Vista) that is now 3 years old. Two days ago I returned home from
vacation and turned on my computer. It froze, and eventually the System Restore tool scanned the
hard drive. The error was that the System Volume is corrupted. I spoke to their (TOSHIBA)
telephone support and they recommended installing a new hard drive and then using the old drive
as a secondary drive, plugged in using USB.
Heres the problem: When I plug in the malfunctioning hard drive using USB, it does show up in
Device Manager. But not in My Computer. (Disk Manager was not interested in starting up at all)
Also, Windows Explorer freezes when I connect the hard drive. I attempted to use GetDataBack,
but although it found the malfunctioning drive, it froze too. I am hearing slight clicking noises
from the drive (so click of death I fear).
Is there anything I can do by myself, or is my only option now to use a data recovery company?
How big are my chances of successful recovery?
Thanks in advance
Al, 31. July 2011, 5:18

Hello Pablo,
My 2 TB Western Digital Elements External HD (WD seems to be the culprit in many cases here.) is
only about 4 months old, and shortly after I loaded it almost half full with photos, music and
videos, my pc will now only recognize it in My Computer, but will not let me access the data on
it. If I click on OPEN, nothing will happen and not a sound will come out. Then, after about a
minute, a This drive needs to be formatted, Would you like to format it now? message will pop
up. I have tried to access it on 4 different pcs (Vista or XP, but not Win 7, and with different
cables) and get the same message every time. Whats unusual about this, is when I plug the hard
drive into the USB port of my Samsung hi-def tv, it will recognize it and allow me to see the
photos, listen to the music and watch most, (but not all), of the videos I have on it. That tells me
that at least the hard drive does work, but of course my tv will not let me add or remove any of
the data, or email or print any pictures, or burn any music or videos from it, or change anything
on it at all. A Western Digital recommended recovery affiliate, will recover the data on it, but for
a considerable fee. There is no critical, must-have, data on the drive that I dont already have
burned to cds or dvds, but its a lot easier to access it all on a single drive. I would like to try
and backup the data to a new hard drive and just leave the old drive connected to the tv. Is
there any software you think might allow me to do this, or allow my pc to access the data? And is
there any other reliable external hds you would recommend that I can back it up to? Any help
would be appreciated!

Hi Som
The only thing that comes to mind is create another account on the computer with administrator
privileges, log in using that new account and go to c:\users and
settings\yourprevioususername\desktop (in windows XP) or c:\users\yourprevioususername\desktop
(in vista or 7) and organize/delete the files.
som.sopheak rith, 30. July 2011, 5:20
Dear sirs,
I had extracted the zip files from one folder and I extracted to my desk top then there are so
many files spread over my desk top and then I try to deleted them off from my desk top and then
I had restarted my computer but after my computer restarting those files still appears again even
though I try to delete them many times . so could you please tell me how to delete those files
permanently , so that it can not appear again ?

Hi Anton:
Try flipping the hard drive upside down, and put a big computer fan over it, (if you have one) to
keep it cool. Then Use DDrescue to extract the data. Read the following article:
Anton, 28. July 2011, 17:00

Hi all,
I have a problem with my 2 TB WDC HDD. Its only 6 month old but its obviously broken. Win 7
does not recognize it anymore (nowhere not even GetDataBack or stuff). However it shows up in
BIOS and Linux (rescue CD).
TestDisk fails even in the quick test (it would stop at 90%). I started copying the files 1:1 with
Parition saving and it works. But it detects bad sectors all the time and slows down its at
400 Errors at sector 500k out of 2 Billion sectors!
I would like to recover some data but its not like I need every single byte. Is there a faster way
of skipping the bad sectors or avoiding them? At this speed it will take 200 days!!! to finish.
Thanks for any help
Anton

Hi Merian
It is difficult to get the data out of a hard drive that developed a clicking sound as a result of
being dropped. That being said try the article I suggested in the previous comment (to Tara). it
is best if you take the hard drive out of the enclosure and connect it directly to a computer.

Hi Tara.
If your hard drive has a clicking sound you need to get your data our ASAP because you do not
know how much time is has left (if it has any at all). #1 you need to see if your hard drive is
detected by the BIOS and that it displays more or less its correct size. #2 If it is you need to
image it using Ubuntu Rescue Remix and ddrescue. Read this article:
That is as clear an answer as I can give you, I hope it helps.

Hi Ting:
I suggest you make an image of the broken hard drive before you loose everything.
Ting, 25. July 2011, 1:21

Okay, when I turn on my laptop,it shows the acer logo and then restart. It wont even boot from
cd. So I tried another hard drive, it just said boot manager dont find. I plug into an enclosure.
Waited and waited, then it show up but take ages to open. Before I could get into them, it
disappear. It make the cling sound a few times. Now when I plug in, it would be just a disk with
no data. But in the disk control thing from the control panel, it didnt show up. Arrr whats wrong
with it. :(
Merian, 22. July 2011, 4:37

I dont know what happened exactly to my external mobile harddrive (WD Scoprio Blue). Left it
connected to my laptop as i was copying some files. When I got back, the computer cannot detect
the mobile harddrive. Noticed that the position where I left my mobile harddrive was not the
same. So I asked my flatmate if it was moved or what. He said he didnt do anything. But I
assume that it fell as it is now making some noises.
Anyway, would really appreciate some tips/advise/help on how to be able to recover my data.
Have already done the following:
1. tried to connect to different computers all failed.
2. swap the harddrive to another similar enclosure the new disk in my old enclosure was
detected/read however the old disk in the new enclosure still cannot be detected/read so
meaning harddrive is the problem.
Havent tried to make the harddrive a slave disk yet.
tara, 21. July 2011, 22:00

Hi all
So I have seen the same problem as mine put on here a couple of times but the answer is never
very clear
I have a western digital 1 tb it was working fine until it clicked a few times and then stopped, I
have put new cables on it change the Sata cable part on it neither worked so im up to thinking I
can take the internal part of my laptop out and attach the external via a cable though Im not too
sure if this is right and can some one help please or send me in the right direction for a you tube
vid

Carlo:
Before you try changing the MB of disk like you said, have you tried connecting the hard drive
to another computer? have you tries a different hard drive on your computer to rule out a
motherboard controller issue?
carlo, 15. July 2011, 13:20

hi pablo , we have a seagate 500 gb 7200.12 sata2
works fine for 6 month .

today blu screen and no hdd was detected by bios
now i unmount the drive and i hear that is stopped
i try to change mb of disk with another of same type
and drive seem started
but i cant see it on the bios and i cant see it via usb cable connected
any suggestion?

Hi Dev:
Other data recovery companies can probably recover your data, as long as the drive is not too
scratched. But there is nothing you can do on your own.

Anand
I would if you give me more details. Is this an internal or external drive. If it it an external drive
you need to take it out of its enclosure and test it directly with the SATA or IDE cables of the
motherboard.

Hi Luke
If it is making a clicking sound and it is not being detected by the BIOS, I do not think its a PCB
problem. If you cant get the BIOS to recognize the hard drive, send it to a data recovery
company.

Hi Dan
Yes a data recovery company can get your data out but it is probably going to be quite expensive.
Dan, 14. July 2011, 23:45

Thanks Pablo. It is not being detected at all. When you say there is nothing I can do on my own
do you mean that it would be possible for an expert in this field to recover the data? I am happy
to pay someone if it is possible, Io idea what I am doing so I had never intended to attmept it
myself!
Thanks again.

Hi Dan
If the computer detect the drive and it is not showing up as a drive under My computer you can
probably try photorec to recover your files. If the computer is not detecting the drive at all, then
I doubt there is anything you can do on your own.

Hi Harrish
Is this an external or internal drive? If this is an internal drive, you hear clicking noises and it is
not detected by the BIOS, you probably do not have any options left. If the drive is external you
might have some options. Yo have to give me more details.

Den:
Whenever you format a drive the data is still there, but if you write something to the hard drive
it overwrites whatever you had in there. The hard drive writes data randomly so if you reinstalled windows you do not know what parts of the hard drive got overwritten. You might be
able to get some of it back, but whatever was overwritten by Windows is gone.
Den, 14. July 2011, 19:14

Hi, i had important data on a laptop running on windows XP which got formatted. After formation,
windows XP was installed on it again. How do i get the data i had on it before it was formatted
Dan, 13. July 2011, 21:25

Hi
I have a USB memory stick that is not working. It is not making any noise, I just cant locate it on
the system after I plug it in. I have tried it on many computers without luck. Is there any hope for
me to retrieve the data or is it lost forever?
Thanks for your help!
Luke, 12. July 2011, 6:10

I forgot to mention that my HDD has worked once since this problem occurred, which was at the
very start but I have had no such luck since.
Luke, 12. July 2011, 5:59

Hello
I have read so many contrasting comments re: my problem so any help would be appreciated with
this.
I have a Toshiba HDD that is making 2 types of clicking sounds, they eventually stop and it
appears to spin as normal, but whatever the case I cannot get it detected in the BIOS ( I have
tried external methods and they do not work either).
I understand from what Ive read that this could be either a head crash or a PCB problem. I have
tried the freezer method and have had no luck with that.
I was about to buy a replacement PCB just to give it a try but am now reading that Toshiba PCBs
have individual firmware on them and that I would need to replace certain chips as well to have
any chance on it working.
If anybody is able to clarify my situation that would be greatly appreciated.
Anand, 11. July 2011, 23:44

I bought a 320 GB WD 2 years back and it was working fine till last month. But now when I
connect the WD to my laptop and navigate to My Computer the laptop is getting hanged. I had
tried various solutions provided in internet but nothing is working out.
Can you please help me on this?
Dev, 11. July 2011, 11:35

Hi Guys,
I really need your help here.
I have a Western Digital 500 GB Hard disk that i have made external. It stopped spinning for some
reason and i had taken it to one of Thailands Data Recovery center. They had told me that the
Hard Disk cant be recovered because there is a scratch on the disc plate and it wouldnt spin. They
changed the spinning head, and the drive began spinning for 2 seconds and stopped again. Is there
any chance you guys can help me out ?? The data is really important to me. Thank you.

Hi Jared.
Looks like you lost the partition. You can use TestDisk to try to fix the partition. However before
doing that I would try to recover the files using Photorec, just in case you do more damage than
good using TestDisk improperly. Read the following two articles:
http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-repair-a-damaged-partition-table-or-mbr/
http://geekyprojects.com/data-recovery-2/how-to-recover-erased-data-using-free-software/
It would be good if you can recover the files ASAP, your drive might be going bad and can die
unexpectedly.
JaredAvery, 10. July 2011, 11:21

Hi I have a Free Agent go Seagate 500gb and Im using it for almost 2 years now. When I connect
it to my desktop computer it reads the hard disk but I cant open it and keep telling me that it is
not formatted. is there any possible solution for me to recover the files inside it? thanks..

Sylvainbruley
Nothing further from the truth. YES, you can recover data out of a hard drive with a clicking
noise, I have done it myself plenty of times with DDrescue. Like everything else, it does not work
100% of the time but it does work in a big percentage of them.

Hi Wangchuk
The drive is most likely dying. If the transfer time is not unbearable, try to get as much as you
can out of the drive in one shot and dont interrupt the copy process. Dont do it in parts, you do
not know if your drive will start again next time.
sylvainbruley, 7. July 2011, 14:26

One more thing.for a clicking noise there is no need to try any software base solution. It will
simply not work. The SA area cant be read this is it.You need to fix the drive first then use a
soft if required.
Getting the drive cold is a great thing. If this is clicking there is no point to it. But if your drive is
recognized with a weak ROM or PCB performance , then yes keep it as cool as possible and you
can get back things.I would recommend fan more than ice.
wangchuk, 7. July 2011, 4:45

hello..
recently my transcend hard drive of 320 GB showed format it when i connected to in my PC. then
i did format it but after this when ever i transfer any files in my hard drive, it is taking too long
to copy..what is the problem with it.can any one suggest me to make my drive effective.

Hi Ferdinand
If you do not care about the stuff on it, have you tried a low level format?
Ferdinand, 2. July 2011, 11:52

Hey!
I got an iomega portable hard drive USB 2.0 500GB.
it is about 4 months since i just got my hard drive, but today it stopped working. The hard drive
was running, and my computer (Vista) was reacting to it, but it could not recognize it. when i
click on my computer it does not show up next to all the hard drives that the computer use as it
used to. But i still can click on the safe remove option. i dont really care too much about what is
stored on it, but is there a way to make it work again?
Some information:
Stopped working after 4 months
Lights are working and it is making a normal sound
i have tried it on 3 different computers
A friend of mine that works with computers said the cause was that it was unplugged while still
running
computer does detect it but cant communicate with it
Maybe ill try the Hard drive gets detected but still does not work thing if not you have anything
else to suggest.
Mohan, 29. June 2011, 9:11

I am having a TOSHIBA external hard disk with 512GB Memory. Unknowingly,My friend sat on top of
the hard disk when the data was getting transferred. Since then it was not detected by computer.
I checked in data recovery centre.They told it could be a media problem and gave me 50% chance
that data can be recovered.at the same time they cautioned me that if they open the hard disk it
would become useless then.Please let me know if there is any chance to recover data from my
hard disk.
Pablo Garcia, 25. June 2011, 12:07

You must take the hard drive out of the plastic enclosure and use a new one, connect it as a slave
on a desktop computer or use an IDE/SATA to USB cable, that is the first step. Then you can rule
out an enclosure problem. If none of that works, and it turns out that the drive is the culprit.
Then use DDrescue to recover your files. Read this article:
How to recover data even when your hard drive is damaged
zah, 25. June 2011, 2:32

hey i have a problem with my external hard disk. Mine can be found on the device manager but
not in my computer.
tried many software out there to extract important data from it but i found no luck. they just
dont find it or im not doing it right.
the instruction usually towards like the hdd is there but i cant find it. Sometime i gave up and i
just want to re-format it but again, I cant even find the external hard disk (im using WD) the
time just wasnt right. i just re-formatted my computer and my backup files are in the broken
external hard disk.
please help me =(
mario, 24. June 2011, 23:38

Pablo Garcia is correct..
I took out the crashed hard drive out of my computer and bought a new hard drive for the
computer for 50 bucks. I needed to get old pictures and videos from the crashed drive so I bought
an 350 IDE enclosure case for another 30 bucks and placed the crashed drive in the enclosure
which now became an external drive. I connected the external drive to the USB port of the
computer, hit local E drive and hit search to locate my old files. Voila! I found the old files in
again.

Hi Moiz Its hard to say, but in order to recover your data your hard drive needs to be detected
by the BIOS period. If the hard drive it is not detected be the BIOS, no software will see it.
Moiz, 18. June 2011, 20:32

Recently i had a virus and every time i tried to format my Main partition it would show me the
blue screen so i took my friends hard drive made his primary and mine secondary. Right click on
my computer and format, and boom it worked. Restarted it and now its not being detected. Not
on my computer or the bios. Connected it with 3 different computers but nothing. What do people
think is wrong and how can i get my stuff back. I had 3 partitions C:/ D:/ and E:/.. I formatted C
and E and forgot to transfer my stuff from D.. :( And now i lost my stuff and would love to have
it back. Its about 12gb of stuff.. Any one with help can email me at khan.moiz@hotmail.com

Dont listen to your friend, Use Photorec.
Nelle, 8. June 2011, 8:10

Hi can i still recover files and pictures from a corrupted hard drive? when i turn on the laptop is
says ERROR NTLDR is missing..a friend of mine says the best solution is to reformat it, but they
checked it and they said that the hard drive is not functioning, they said that the circle that
runs inside it is not running anymore..is there still hope?
TaLibanUFB, 6. June 2011, 11:50

thx guys, you are the best. You saved me!

Hi Sally
You need to give more details about what the drive is doing. Is it making any sounds? What is the
error you see on the screen when you start your computer? Does it get detected by the BIOS? Give
as many details as you can. Do not tell us how it happened or when it happened, that is not
important, just what it is doing now.
Sally Widener, 3. June 2011, 20:51

Hard Drive went out on Old Computer. I am a Genealogist and Would love to Find a Way to get
my Huge amount of pictures. Put into another hard Drive or Find some way to Recover them. on
Disk, This is a Very big Loss for me. Does Anyone have a Suggestion of Where i should take it.
Have had 3 people look at it so far. Say I cant do anything. I am Hopeing for a Miracle that will
not cost me alot of Money please I Hope someone can help me. It would mean so much
yazz, 2. June 2011, 7:30

hi again , can i send a picture of the hard disk to u so u can see what i mean ?

Hi Rick:
I politely disagree with your opinion.
1) If you read the article, the article describes freezing the drive in a ziplock bag, to prevent
condensation from getting to the drive when you take it out.
2) When you have tried all other alternatives, photorec, ddrescue, etc, etc. and nothing has
worked and you do not have $1000 or more to spend in data recovery this is a good alternative
that works; not all the time but it does work. And, if it does not, you can still use a data recovery
company, in case you come up with the money later.

Hi yazz:
You need to take the hard drive out of its eclosure and connect it directly to a computer, and see
if the BIOS detects it and if it shows its correct capacity. If it does, you have a prety good chance
of getting your data back. Anything is possible, but I have never seem a hard drive with the USB
connection built in, all hard drives are the same. Have you ever tried opening the enclosure?
Rick, 1. June 2011, 9:50

Just thought Id throw my two pence in. I wouldnt recommend putting your hdd (hard disk drive)
in the freezer ever. They are not air tight and thus when you cool them down in your freezer
frost/moister can get in. Then you warm them back up when you turn them on and you get
condensation.
Also some of the motors use fluid bearings so when you freeze them they can crack..(liquid
expanding when you freeze it.) And again when they thaw they drip lubrication fluid all over your
the insides of your drive.
I can recommend though perhaps putting a heat sink on the drive to help keep it cooler as it
works. Oh and PCB swaps dont really work any more on modern drives, the boards have unique
data on them individual to each drive, you have to reprogram your donor board with this info.
Good luck with any data recovery work you come across folks.
yazz, 31. May 2011, 21:14

hi i have a a portable WD BAAA5000ABK-00 500 gb hard drive, i dropped it a while ago , and when
i connect it to my laptop it spins for like 10 seconds and i hear a ticking sound,then it stops
spinnig, i tried to find another enclosure for it but i cant find one , the micro usb seems to be
biult in the hard disk itself ,it doesnt look like SATA o IDE, i dont know what to do , plz help me i
have very important data on it
Pablo Garcia, 31. May 2011, 20:32

Hi Joshua
You can buy a used had drive on Ebay, it has to be of the same model number, firmware and even
serial number have to be as close as possible sometimes. Then you swap the boards.
Joshua Forbes, 29. May 2011, 20:40

Hi i have a 1tb seagate drive and the usb connection has broken of board/ is there a way to fix
this with out sending in to seagate. Thanks in advance
Jenny, 29. May 2011, 11:28

Help!!!
I accidentally dropped my Seagate external hard drive and now it cannot be detected by my
laptop!!
I need to recover those data inside my external hard drive but i dont know how.. help me
please
jp, 25. May 2011, 17:10
what can i do if my friend acidentally removed my externals power supply while i was
transferring data to it, and now my external doesnt even power on when i connect it to my pc?(its
the hdd with USB AND external power supply). theres work on their that i cant afford to lose.
please help!!!

Hi Tom:
CGSecurity is the page of the makers of PhotoRec and TestDisk. I have several tutorials on how to
use them on this site. These are some of them:
How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software
How to Repair a Damaged Partition Table or MBR
Best Data Recovery Software Top 10 List
Tom, 25. May 2011, 8:17

hi guys, havent read the article in full detail (sorry) but i recently lost all my files on my hard
drive (the computer wouldnt read it) and i spent days looking for a program that would help
restore all the files, in the end, which worked for me, i found this website called CG Security, its
nothing huge, just a homemade looking webpage, but the program it offers works. the programs
nothing special looking, but its free, and it worked for me. thought id post this if anyone else is in
a similar situation like me, heres the link to the programs.

Arnav:
Hard Drives do not have USB slots so I am assuming you are talking about an external USB hard
drive. Your problem is very simple to fix. You need to take the actual hard drive out of its
current enclosure, purchase a new one and install it. Enclosures are cheap, but you have to make
sure you purchase the correct one. (SATA or IDE). Take the hard drive to a computer store like,
Tiger Direct, CompUSA, or Frys and they can tell you what you need.
milanoi mell, 17. May 2011, 5:26

hi, my 1TB WD dropped in water accidentally i havent used it in 6 hours although i shook it all up
it wasnt much but am afraid to use it coz i dont know if i will find anything or if something needs
to be done
arnav, 12. May 2011, 23:32

The USB slot inside of my had disk has broken. I want to know if it can be repaired.
Thank you

Hi Kiara:
Read this article:
How to Retrieve Files From a Dead Computer
Kiara, 11. May 2011, 15:51

My laptop ran out of battery. When I tried to turn it on the screen is completely black and there
is a blinking horizontal line in the corner of the screen. Also, whenever I press a button the
computer beeps. WHAT DO I DO?! T_T

Daster:
See if this works for you:
How to Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is Damaged

Hi Josh, if your hard drive is in good mechanical condition, Photorec or Recover My files should
have been able to recover at least some of the data. Have you tried DDrescue? Read this article.
How to Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is Damaged
Josh, 9. May 2011, 7:31

Hi Guys, Dropped my 1TB WD Passport HDD the other day while transferring files. Continued to
work for a while but all user rights changed and wouldnt unlock. un plugged and tried the next
day on a different PC which sees the drive displays it in the directory but doesnt recognise it a
having any capacity or files it is simply a shell. Device manager still reads the drive properties
however no data.
Drive still spins freely. no noise of death, cleaned contacts but made no difference. Dont mind
as much if the data is not able to be recovered but would be good if the drive could be brought
back to life. Tried Recover My Files and photrec, also tried to run the reformatting tool and disk
defrag but none work. Any other suggestions? A office IT guy thinks the segment or partitioning
may be completely corrupted or no longer recognised. I have no idea what this means
Daster, 8. May 2011, 6:49

Hey i have an Iomega external 2.0 Usb external hard rive, im not too computer savy but i get
around. Heres my problem. A few days ago i noticed my external as having trouble booting up but
it started up when the cord was pushed to a specific side or angle so i tried a different cable but
nope same problem so i thought it was a faulty jack on the external, so i sticky taped the cable in
a way so it was working. A few days later however the hardrive stopped working at all, when
plugged in it says This hardrive has malfunctioned and windows cannot recognise this drive etc
when i listen to it the hardrive when plugged in it starts booting up then abruptly there is a single
click, like a switch being thrown
i have spent ages collecting the data, vidoes, music, photos etc. on the hardrive and i was
wondering what i should to to recover that data if possible.
Kikoba, 6. May 2011, 13:34
HI every one,
I also have my Toshiba external hard drive. I dropped it down accidentally when it was running i.e
it was connected to my laptop, on moving my laptop it dropped down from a table, from that
time it started running very slowly while requiring me to format one partition after another,
finally the whole disk cant work any more i.e the PC cant show it though the sound of detection is
heard. What can i do guys?

Tim:
Time for Photorec, read this article:
How to Recover Data Using Free Software

Adam
Time for Photorec, read this article:
How to Recover Data Using Free Software
Adam c., 4. May 2011, 14:31

Hi, I have had a WD 1tb external hard drive for some time now, and my laptop recently was
reformatted. Now. When I put the HD on my computer, it recognizes the name of it, as well as
the amount of data used on it, which is correct, but no files are displayed inside the folder at all.
The icon on the my computer screen does not display for the hard drive either. Im deploying soon
to afghanistan and could really used the data on there. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Tim Rudziensky, 4. May 2011, 14:11

My hard drive appears to be blank asks if I want to REFORMAT NOW?
Have been using a WD7500P032 drive for a few years. Turned it on
and got a big surprise, the drive seems to be empty. This certainly is not
the case (hopefully). One person I spoke to said the drive likely has all the information still on it
just the
directory is missing. What is the best procedure for recovering the data? I have reviewed a lot of
information but cannot find my specific situation. The program RECOVER MY FILES seems
appropriate using the Recover Drive function, any advise you can pass along would be greatly
appreciated!
Pablo Garcia, 28. April 2011, 14:38

Thomas:
I do not know what your specific case is. But, you need something to extract the data to. You can
use photorec for example and a USB flash drive.
Thomas Baklund, 28. April 2011, 4:46
How about if the drive is the only drive in the computer, the computer will not boot, and that is
the only computer in the house. How should you retrive data from it before replacing the disk?
And it is also just one harddrive slot and its a laptop

It spinned and now it does not spin anymore? If the drive does not spin you are going to have to
send it to a data recovery specialist. IF if DOES spin when you unplug it and plug it back in, you
might have a chance, read mi article:
How to Recover Data Even When a Hard Drive is Damaged
Shan, 26. April 2011, 14:10

Hi,
I have dropped my Seagate free agent 1.5 external hard drive. It has rrrr sound, and flashing light.
I sent it to data recovery specialist, and he said it is not spining. After he changed the head, it
spinned for 3-4 minutes, and stop. What can I do with this situation?
Marian, 18. April 2011, 6:03

I recovered the data, however, when I attached the recovered drive to a Windows 7 computer
(USB) the only options available to me in disk management is new simple volume. Mark partition
as active is not an option. Thank you

HI Isabel
I do not know if you will be able to get your drive to be bootable again, but you can certainly
extract the data. I would try extracting the data first with Photorec, and then use TestDisk to fix
the drive. TestDisk can probably get it to be bootable again (so you do not have to reinstall
Windows). The reason why I am telling you to use photorec first is so you can have your data
before running testdisk, just in case you make a mistake with testdisk and make matters worse.
newbie, 14. April 2011, 3:48

Hi,
So I made the critical error of initializing my C drive when I was downloading some software (big
mistake, dont ask). Not a few seconds after hitting the initialize button, my pc went black and
said No Operating System Found. The computer store said the driver was gone, at best they
could do a super scan and this may help them retreive the lost data. Is it retreivable or should I
accept that it is gone?
Thanks

HI, BLP I tell you what I tell everybody. the best test you can do is to connect the hard drives
directly to the SATA or IDE cables as a slave drive. And see if they get detected by the computers
BIOS, if they do then you have a good chance of getting your data back.
If the drives are identical you can probably swap boards and the one that does not make a sound
might have a bad board.
You should be able to recover the other one, you just have to do some reading :)
BLP, 12. April 2011, 16:33

Pablo,
This is a very informative website. I read all instructions and comments but before doing anything
else, I wanted to get your input on my situation.
A couple of months ago, I plugged one of my WD external hard drives (passport or something like
that) into the USB port (computer runs Vista). Never had any issues with any of my external hard
drives before. Although the little white light turned on as soon I plugged it, the drive did not get
detected. Shortly after that, I plugged another WD external drive (passport essential, I think) and
exactly the same thing happened. The white light was on but the drive was not detected. I then
plugged a third external hard drive (Toshiba) and it worked without any issues. I tried a fourth
hard drive (WD but with a fire-wire connection) and that worked just fine as well.
My initial reaction was that this was due to the known issue with WD drives and the USB cables.
Tried different USB cables, no luck. Called WD technical support, they sent me double USB cables
that did not help either. Of course, they suggested that I send the drives to a data recovery
service and they would then send me new drives as part of the warranty. No thanks no more
WDs.
I bought a docking station, removed the hard drives from the enclosure kits and connected the
drives. Same thing the drives were not detected. Then I thought that the drives were affected
by some electric circuit issue, even though my computer is connected through a UPS station. I had
noticed some issue with the power at home the day before.
In any case, the issues with the two drives seem to be identical, except for the following minor
differences:
- one of the drives is detected as a WD with a red X under disk management, indicating that
the device is working properly. Yet, none of its properties can be seen. This same drive makes a
quiet rrrrrr noise for about 3-4 seconds, but this does not sound like the clicking noise of
death described above.
- the other drive does not make any noise, does not get detected at all by the computer.
Note that I have tried connecting the drives to different computers (desktops with Vista and
laptops with Windows 7). Any help would be appreciated. I am willing to make a donation to your
website if I can avoid sending the drives to data recovery services.
Thank you very much in advance!
BLP

You can find them on Ebay, just be sure of what you are buying, ask questions if the information is
not clear.
Eugene, 8. April 2011, 7:20

Where can I buy circuit board for my WD external drive as there is a short on the powering of the
3volt line of the board?
Paul langan, 2. April 2011, 16:04
I have a WD My Book external drive WD500032-00, I backed up everything there, all family photos,
videos, data files. Because that is what it is supposed to be a backup drive. I am freaking out as
it as stopped working. It fails the Western Digital diagnostic test ( too many damaged sectors!!!).
When You click on drive to open it says it needs formatting. Help, Help. Should I buy Recover My
Files software? PLEASE HELP!
Diablo, 21. March 2011, 4:03

Hi Dennis. Try to ask tech people to load your drive as a slave one on other computer. Then use
Acronis or Partition Magic to watch your HDD
Ahmed, 19. March 2011, 13:41

Hi Pablo.
A very nice article. I have a seagate Momentus 5400.5 160GB HD, it was in a plastic external case.
It dropped from my laptop bag. And now its not working. When i connect it the light with the
casing turns on and there is beeping sound from the HD, but it is not detectable on my laptop.
Please suggest what is wrong or what item may be broken and replaceable. Much of my office
work and some private data is stored in the HD which I really need.
cole, 14. March 2011, 23:35

hi can u please email me, my hard drive makes noises wen i plug it in and makes that noise wen
something get connected but i cant find it in documents only in the control panel, it says there its
working properley, but its not lol. it has all my photos of my 2 lil baby girls i put them all on
there 2days before it stopped working :(
Dennis, 8. March 2011, 12:52

Hello Pablo,
Very informative site, well anyways since I found this website and im also having this problem
with my WD 1 terabyt inernal hd. It was running well the past few days nothing out of the
ordinary until when I turned on the computer and took really long just to boot up the windows.
Then I found out that the drive is not on the my computer Ive partition the drive in 2 so that I
would be more organize. The bios can detect the drive but the windows cant. The tech people in
place tried to do it on another computer with a result of long booting time. You might not
happened to have a solution on this? Need to save all that date. ^_^
Pablo Garcia, 2. March 2011, 8:59

Hi Kari:
Its really hard to diagnose your problem if I do not have the drive with me. There is a lot of good
information on this and other sites, I suggest you start reading. One thing I suggest is that you
take the hard drive out of its current enclosure and connect it directly to a computers IDE or
SATA cable and see if the BIOS detects it, if it does not then you are going to have to send it to a
data recovery service. If does then purchase a new enclosure, or a USB to SATA adapter, they are
very inexpensive, that way you can rule out a problem with the enclosure. Now if this does not
work I suggest you use photorec to recover your files. Finally if that does not work, use DDrescue.
I suggest you get one of your friends that are experienced with computers to do all of this for
you.
Kari, 2. March 2011, 4:01

help! i have a seagate freeagent desk 1tb usb drive. last saturday i turned off my system, ignoring
the voice in the back of my head that was telling me something really bad would happen if i did
it. i awoke sunday morning and turned it back on and my freeagents lights wouldnt come on,
computer management couldnt detect it either in the device screen or in the disks screen, and in
terms of vehicle engines, it sounds like it is trying to start up but it just woke fully kick over.
theres no beep, no squeal, and not really a click to speak of. yes, i am in a panic, i just had to
tear down my case to replace a bad pci adapter and in doing so, replaced the local drive for a
larger one & added a secondary internal drive. ALL of my data had been moved to the seagate
during this process and i had just barely began to restore and rebuild pathways. there was data
that had not been baked up online or elsewhere yet and i also had backups of my friendss pcs
on it, and bakups of all 3 of my households pcs. for various reasons, starting with i live in a
solely tourist industry based area and winter is layoff season and i am literally FLAT broke, i
cannot afford a service. however, i do have 2 friends locally and one available thru the internet
and his wife that i can turn to for the extremely advanced stuff and the stuff that i am confident
or experienced in. one of them is even threatening to put a server in my house. please help! at
this point, id even accept someone lying to me to give me hope. yes, after 2 days of crying, i am
desperate and nearly dry eyed
andrew, 25. February 2011, 12:02

my hard drive, a nexstar3 1TB, fell about a foot and a half from an end table to the floor last
night. Now when I start it (which I have only done twice because I am nervous) it just makes an
intermittent buzzing sound (buuuuzz . . . buuuuzz . . . buuuzz . . . ). It is not detected by the
computer. I am a photographer, had recently moved all my five years of files over to that drive
and not yet backed it up. It was a very short fall, when I think back on it I have to imagine that
the actual disc must be fine. It was running at the time it fell. Im worried. Any thoughts?
dave, 23. February 2011, 16:53

hello all, i just bought a 2 terabyte WD Elements external HD 2 days ago, i filled it up 3/5 full
with movies. it was working fine but today when i tried to hook it up it would not show up as a
drive in my computer. i have another external that shows up fine. when going into disc
managment i can see it in there as 2028 gb of unallocated space, i tried to create a new volume
but it said that the disc was not initialized. i then tried to initialize the disc but it said that the
media was write protected. i dont need to recover the data on it i just want to get it working
again. any suggestions?
josfin, 21. February 2011, 21:17

hi
please help my WD my passport essential fell down since then it is making the clung noise,
can any one please help me sort the problem and to recover the data or make it work.
Theresa, 15. February 2011, 21:37

Had a wd my book external hard drive the computer no longer detects the hard drive as i have
all my pictures and videos on this i really need to get my data off i removed from case and
plugged directly into computer sata slot now my computer does not boot up get the screen to
boot into diagnostics etc and freezes on that screen any suggestions
Pablo Garcia, 6. February 2011, 19:01

There is not reason to panic. you are probably in one of the best situations for data recovery.
What broke is not part of the hard drive is part of the external case, just open the case, take
actual hard drive out, insert it into a new case and thats it, you are done. Those cases are really
cheap by the way, but you have to make sure you purchase the right one. Take the hard drive to
the computer store and they should be able to tell you what case to buy.
robert, 5. February 2011, 20:58

the usb port has broken off inside my hard drive??? WTF DO I DO?????? i havent used it in a new
days and i wanted to play some wow and i discovered that is has broken off. it is now rattling
around the HDD. i am on the edge of breaking point everything on there was put on there from my
brother that came over to NZ from ausy just to do so pritty much H.E.L.P
Xero, 30. January 2011, 16:50

hey , i tried everything to get my external to work , but nothing worked! I have very important
files in there please let me know if you have other solutions please let me know.
regards
Rose Parisi, 18. January 2011, 16:17

I turned on my Dell lnspiron 1525 laptop and it is asking me for a password for OWNER. There was
never a password set. It would have been under the name Mike. I tried the password for Mike but
it will not take it. I am locked out of the laptop. I tried several suggestions, even re-installing the
software and it keeps bringing me back to that screen. HELP!
sydnei, 15. January 2011, 9:47

Hi .. i need some help. I refuse to pay a small country for the recovery.
I have an 80Gig Hitachi drive from a Mac (internal drive from about 2007). 5400rpm. The drive
died and gave me the white screen of death. When the IT geeks plugged it into another
macbook the disk spun and the lights went on but the laptop couldnt see the drive.
Other geeks that saw it told me to send it to data recovery.
Help. please email me.
Ta.
Pablo Garcia, 14. January 2011, 14:11

Hi EdhelDil:
I followed your advise and updated the article and included a link to another of my articles which
talks about how to use Ddrescue: How to Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is Damaged
EdhelDil, 13. January 2011, 5:48
Hello,
Thanks for those informations, which are helpful and nicely written down.
However, Id highly recommend that you change the ORDER they are written in on this page:
I think you should START with all the things to try to do if the drive is in any way accessible
BEFORE you put the section on how to try to freeze it if its not at all accessible
Otherwise, I guess many people will just follow the webpage order and therefore will completely
damage their drive by the freeze method before they tried the other methods, even though their
disk was maybe accessible (and therefore could be saved with ddrescue or the like).
Hope this helps ^^
EdhelDil.
Chuck, 11. January 2011, 14:06

I just bought a 320 GB Western Digital ATA to replace my 120 drive in my older powerbook G4 HiRes A1139. It was making kind of a grinding noise for a couple day and I got lax backing up.
Anyway it stopped, I did get an apple icon once trying to restart but then i shut it down and I can
not get it to restart, so I guess it is dead. I have now taken the drive out of the computer. But
before put in the new WD 320 ATA I would like to try to find a way to recoup my data. All my
iTunes are there as well as many other things. I spent quite a git on iTunes would like to recover,
I have read some articles on trying to get the data off that drive, can you help, thanks.
Pablo Garcia, 29. December 2010, 8:22

Hi Lisa, if you look at the bottom of the article there are links to more data recovery articles.
Click on the one named How to recover data even when hard drive is damaged
Lisa, 28. December 2010, 20:45

I tried doing as this tutorial suggests, I put my seagate freeagent storage device in the freezer for
2 hours and made sure it was sealed in a bag i took it out and made sure to carefully connect it
to my computer once again and this did not work. I also tried tapping the device which did not
help anymore. It sounds like it is not the click of death but rather an rrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrr
sound.and it just keeps going over and over again. Is there anything else I can do that may help
to get my data off of the device. My device is under warranty but I would like to get some of the
data off of the device before sending it in because I realize that they will not recover my data for
free.
Ruslan, 27. December 2010, 15:29

Help please I have Western Digital External hard Drive 500 GB.It was nearly full, such there was
only 50 gb free space. Day by day it worked slow and one day It stopped working, not only I am
unable to access it but even I couldnt see it in My Computer window. . I can feel the disk
rotating and the light is on on the HDD. It used to flicker when it was accessible now the light is
just on.. plus there got some sound inside.. after 10 seconds this sound stops
Pls help me in getting disk accessible to me.. I am using Toshiba Laptop
Pls help me
Thanks in anticipation
Regards
Ruslan
anirudh kuksal, 24. December 2010, 11:20

sir.. i have 2 hardisk one of 320 gb [segate ] and anotherof 500gb [segate 620 as] .In 320 gb i have
installed window xp only. and in another 500 gb hardisk i have stored my valuable data upto 450
gb..which is very precious.now the problem starts in 500 gb hardisk from somedays as when i
start my pc it checks for error in 500gb like stage 1 of 2 ..2 of 2 .. and finally 3 of 3 .. and
process ends with replacing files.it repeates for 2 -3 days when i start my pc. now my pc is not
detecting the 500gb hardisk . it says on statup secondary slave hardisk error or primarmary
slave hardisk error and the system ask for resume or f1 .when i disconnect the 500 gb hardisk my
pc starts normally.if by hit & trail i start my pc with both 320 & 500 gb hardisk. in device
manager it shows both the hardisk but in disk managment it shows only 320 gb hardisk..
also when i connect my 500 gb hardisk it also gives crr crr sounds . plz help . i dont want my
data lost if it can be recoverable.
Mun, 16. December 2010, 6:45

I have a Western Digital External HDD. Its a few years old and Ive never had any problems with
it.. until when my sister by mistake inserted its cable into a DVD Port. After that it just stopped
showing up all together on my laptop, and desktop. When I plug it in to a computer, it makes
little sound as the header spins and then goes up again making click at the end and then starts
spinning again but will not appear under my computer. My laptop is running vista, and my
desktop is running W7. I have already read probably 50 forums on this yet nothing has seemed to
help. I have unplugged and replugged, changed cables, changed computers, disabled and reenabled under disk manager, unistalled drivers and let windows refind/install them, searched
for new drivers, etc. I have even attempted to go into disk manager and try to rename it, yet it
doesnt give me the option to do so. It shows up as Disk 1 and the details under that show
unknown and not initialized When I attempt to initialize it, the virtual disk manager just
displays an error message that says incorrect function. When I right click on the device under
disk management it only gives me the options of initialize disk (error message: Invalid Function
or Cyclic Redudancy Check), offline (same error message), other than that I can just access
properties, and help. I have literally tried everything I can.
I dont want to lose my data. Can you tell me how I can recover my data in this particular case.
The serial number of my ext. HDD is : WD800U017-001
Ashish, 15. December 2010, 1:42

Hi Pablo,
I have 500 gb Seagate external Hard Disk. I have purchased it 8 months back. It has very cruicial
data on it.
When i connect to my laptop, it does not detect and the light continuing blinking on the hard
disk. when I connected to the PC windows XP it detects and ask for the drivers. I have given the
path of the drivers but it does not work. any of the systems are not able to detect the Hard disk.
Please help me in finding out if the hard disk has been destroyed or how can i be able to recover
my data from hard disk.
Hard disk is under warranty, but sending to service centre .will they recover my data or replace
my hard disk. please help
Regards,
Ashish
sola, 13. December 2010, 8:24

please my HDD just crashed and i lost some of my documents on the drive (80GB) seagate. what

can i do.
SeanPaul, 13. December 2010, 7:26

HI Pablo , help needed.
i have a 500gb iomega external harddrive. ive had it only about a year/ year and a half.
about 2 days ago, it dropped about a metre onto the floor. when i plug it in, the blue light still
comes on and stays on, however the external hardrive is not recoqnised on my computer and i
tried on data management etc and it also doesnt show up. i believe the usb itself that plugs into
the side of my laptop is slightly broken as it does not feel secure in the port.
Any idea if its broken, or any ways i can still recover the files in the external drive ;)
thank you!
sahil, 23. November 2010, 6:40

hii i have a seagate 500gb still in warrenty till 1h back working fine but now i plug it in the laptop
makes a sound that isomethingis plugged in but nothing in my computer and the light blinks
continously it has data which is priceless no unusual sound proper vibration can my data be
recovered or should give to the company will getting it repaired erase my data please answer
L Lim, 18. November 2010, 23:21

Hi Pablo,
Thanks very much for taking the time to compose the above article and doling out advice.
I wondered if you could point me in the right direction, as my problem is just slightly different
from the scenarios that you have painted.
I dropped my 500GB Seagate portable external hard drive, while moving my laptop but luckily, it
was still attached to my laptop via its USB cable. However, the jolt from its fall may be the
reason for why my external HD is no longer working properly.
The symptoms are as follows:
1) After the jolt, there may have been a whirring noise I cant remember. However, I do
remember the external HD beeping every second, for a minute or so.
2) The green light on my external HD started flashing about once every 3 seconds (when it is
operating normally, the green light fades in and out instead of flashing abruptly). This carried on
until I switched off my laptop, below.
3) A file that I had opened, from my external HD, froze.
4) After I had closed the file, it would not open again.
5) I attempted to safely disconnect my HD but my laptop informed me that my HD was still in use.
6) My HD was not reacting, so I tried to shut down my laptop.
7) My laptop was taking unusually long to shut down, so I switched it off without waiting for it to
power down.
8) I disconnected the laptop from its power source and disconnected my HD from my laptop.
9) After a suitable wait, I reconnected the laptop and connected my HD after my computer booted
up.
10) My HD started beeping in the same way described above, followed by the flashing light.
11) An icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen informed me that my HD was being
installed.
12) After a spell, my external hard drives light started fading in and out, normally.
13) My external HD did not show up in My Computer but did appear in Device Manager, where it
was stated as working normally, in General Properties.
14) In Disk Management, my exetrnal HD did not appear in the upper window panel. It appeared in
the lower window panel as Disk 1, with a red arrow pointing downwards and a black bar above
its description of unallocated (if I recall correctly).

15) Under its properties, in the stated x amount of storage within my external HD, the same
amount was stated as available, although I have substantial amounts of data stored within the HD.
I should be grateful if you could kindly advise me as to: a) what the problem appears to be, here
and 2) whether I should send my HD to Seagates recovery specialists (i365). Additionally, would
you happen to know of other reliable recovery specialists in the U.K.?
Many thanks for your time.
Jack, 18. November 2010, 15:31

I have a 1TB SATA drive on my 6 month old gateway desktop which has apparently failed recently.
The first symptom was the system freezing at the gateway logo screen on startup. Nothing worked
(no safe mode, setup screen, etc.) I had the HDD tested and the tech couldnt get to any of the
data. the drive would start to spin up and then abruptly wind down and stop. No sounds, grinding
or otherwise. My guess is that the drive has finally failed. The problem is that I really need to
access data on that drive (mostly family photos, videos, etc.). Is it worth trying to freeze
technique on this one??
Ren, 12. November 2010, 1:03

Hey there!
i have a Toshiba external hard disk(320 gb), when i plug it in through USB my laptop can detect
that there is a generic external hard disk but it wont show up in My Computer and there is a noise
whenever i plug it in then suddenly the noise stops and when i check if the disk is spinning i found
out its not spinning . I need to access it, because of very important file that is in there. Can you
tell me what to do?
Heres my email ren_acuna@yahoo.com. Kindly help me please!
Benjamin, 9. November 2010, 23:26

hello there,
I desperately need help here, as I need my files to back in order for me to work on my tasks tat is
due 2 days time.
I have this D: Drive in my com, which no idea how the manufacturer combines all 3 HDD and show
it as 1 to me.
I now can see the D: drive on My Computer. but when I clicked on it. It says Drive not
conencted
Any solutions ?
Looking fwd for ur answer. Thanks!
francine, 30. October 2010, 16:55

thank you very much for the link to recover my files- getdata. i had dropped my hard drive, and
after bringing it out into the frosty weather, it stopped running smoothly (and couldnt be
recognized by my computer). after running the getdata program, not only did it find all my files,
but has guided my harddrive to run smoothly again! : ) it has been a HUGE relief to have my files
back+ copied to a safe place
thanks!

Sam, 28. October 2010, 21:56
Hi,
i have a 3.5 IDE Seagate Quantum Fireball where the Pin is broken.. So its not been detected. I
have plenty of priceless files. Would be great if you recommend me any solutions without going to
the Data recovery service.
LisaB, 27. October 2010, 17:21

Please help.
I am a consultant, and have been using a NEW WD passport external hard drive to back up my
dataand my 2 co-workers. The data on here cant be replaced, and my old laptop has been
returned to the vendor. I havent had a chance to copy the data off the backup drive.
Today I plugged it in, and it made a quiet wincing sound 3-4 times then its just quietthe light
it on, but I cant hear it spinning and its not being reccognized on My Computer. My lapptop
makes the sound to tell he it knows something is attached, but nothing shows up. I tried using it
on my husbands PC and it does the same thing.
Does anyone know where to go to have the data recovered in the Toronto area
Thanks, LisaB
Sam, 18. October 2010, 6:15

Hi, my 500 gb external HD (Transcend) gets detected by windows but its not showing up in
windows explorer.
I tried for changing letter path but the option doesnt appear.
In the disk management when i go to that drive and do right click i get option of initializing and
when I click it .. It says incorrect function.
Please help me.. Thank you!!
Daniel, 16. October 2010, 8:29

I just conected my External Seagate Barracuda 1.5 Tb in the plug and usb: and i heard a strange
sound A metallic and long cliiiiiinc cllliiiiinc cliiiiiinc Then, i realized that the disks were not
spinning at all (dead!).
I tried to connect the drive at the sata port of the computer, but nothing changed, only that
metallic sound and disks not spinning at all I suppose this is a mechanichal failure. Can you
please confirm me this? Is there a way to access to the data? Thanks.
SRK, 11. October 2010, 10:19

Hi,
I accidentally dropped my Seagate go flex1TB Portable HDD, and now it is not detecting by my
laptop (Vista OS) , the light still turns on and the HD sound seems normal. its a brand new and
2months old , though i have 500GB data , i have back up for that ..i wanted to knowwhether it
can still work as usual after any repair ?
Thanks!
SRK
xenia, 9. October 2010, 11:51
hello, how are you?

I have this external hard drive, a Freeagent Seagate, it was working fine for ~4 years, I had lots of
things stored in it. However, the little teeth inside the USB port have bent for some reason,
although I have been handling it with lots of care, and now the drive wont work. How can I get it
working or get the data off it? is it possible to put a new USB port in? Many many thanks
Kali Placencia, 7. October 2010, 13:17

Okay so I am not sure if you can help me but I have a 1.5TB that was pretty much full. I saved
photos, school papers, and thousands of dollars of digital scrap kits. Pretty much years of
collecting stuff. One day the USB port broke off in it. So my buddy who runs his own computer
repair company ordered me a new external case and got it working. Well the problem is, when he
plugged it in, everything was gone. He ran a 24 hour data recovery program but nothing came
back. NOTHING! I lost everything. I am ready to have a break down- literally. Is there anything
else I can do or is it all gone? Please help!!!
Thanks!!
scrapmommy13@gmail.com
Craig, 3. October 2010, 1:10

I have a 40gig external hard drive that I dropped on the hard tiled floor, ever since my hard drive
is not detected by windows at all, the lights usually flashed green now its flashing green then red
constantly when plugged in via USB, I can hear the drive making the noise it normally makes yet
windows does not detect it. Is there any hope of me recovering the data. Please help???
Anish Shenoy, 30. September 2010, 6:34

Help.. my 1.5 year old Iomega 500 GB external HD seized for no reason.. One day I used it for just
30 mins then put it off and an hour later when I put it on Windows didnt detect it.. The blue
indicator lights up constantly, its casing gets warm normally, disks spin normally without any
clicking sound.. The vibrations are normal, only thing is that the indicator LED glows
constantly..otherwise it would blink whenever data is being accessed.. So it appears that the PC
doesnt recognize it.. I changed USB cable, switched ports but no luck.. I tried everything I could
do.. it is not shown in My Computer or Device manager.. I tried the HDD on a different computer
and also on Ubuntu.. Condition is the same.. The problem appears to be case 3right..? Could
changing it from SATA to internal IDE using an adapter solve the problem.?? Does changing its
existing SATA to USB adapter solve the problem..? Does Iomega provide spare adapters..?
Susan, 27. September 2010, 18:17

I have an eGo portable drive which I use to back up my photos and files. I have only used it twice
since purchasing the device earlier this year. Last week, I tried to back up my files but my
computer couldnt establish connection with the portable device. I had to wiggle the cable to a
certain position to get the device working. I contacted Iomega about the problem and was told to
try a similar cable and see what happens. I tried and it not only didnt work, but now the port on
the device is broken. I dont want to spend a lot of money in the recovery if possible. If theres
an alternative, I would like to try that first.
Hope you can help.
Jane, 27. September 2010, 16:24
Hi Pablo
I lent my 500Gb external Meccer Bravo to a friend (who has a degree in computer science!) and
he plugged it in using a cord with the wrong power supply. That drive has all the project data on
for one of my majors and was the only back up because my computers internal had to be
reformatted at the same time after it stopped working. :(
really really really need to get that hard drive working again soon. Any advice?
please please please help. :(
thanks so much
natalie, 21. September 2010, 22:22

hi there, i have a maxtor external hardrive that has stopped working.the comp doesnt pick it up
and i occasionally get a pop up error msg telling me the drive had malfunctioned. i have all of my
sons baby photos on there :( and stupid naive me thought they would be save on the external as
it was always treated well ( i thought)
i have had the drive sitting here for about 12 months now im scared if i try to fix it ill lose
everything forever :( but im now at my wits end and need to try to get my baby photos back!
any advice? please email me back
sweetybubby@hotmail.com
Dario, 20. September 2010, 16:43

Hi Pablo,
I have a WD3200BEV (surprise!) that underwent a very short fall while I was watching a video off
of it. The video got choppy, so I stupidly ejected the drive.
If I plug in the device, the I can hear/feel the disk spinning, the led goes on but then starts
blinking. No noise whatsoever, but I get the message: the disk you inserted was not readable by
this computer
When I try to verify the disk using disk utility I get:
invalid record count
catalog file entry not found for extent
the volume needs to be repaired
error: the underlying task reported failure on exit.
Any suggestions?
Thanks, Dario
Noorul , 19. September 2010, 0:58

i have an external hard drive, and it has 4 partition one the partitions is not opening, it has lot of
file so i want open it pls help me
Ste Morris, 7. September 2010, 6:56

My pc will get to my desktop, hang for about a min, then bsod appears, and restarts. This also
does this on safe mode. When i put my restore disc in, it will not detect the hard drive. Any
answers will be supurb
Vipul Sanghani, 4. September 2010, 5:37

Hi Pablo
Ive got a Seagate External Hard Drive (1TB)

and its stopped working
When it is plugged to the computer (but not clicking sounds) for a few seconds, the computer
detects Lights on Hard Drive but the drive is not showing in My computer. I have My wedding
clipping and so many Photographs on my Hard Drive
Please help me to recover my files from hard drive
please
thanks
Vipul Sanghani
vipul_sanghani@hotmail.com
John Andrews, 25. August 2010, 4:57

Please help me. My 1TB hard drive fell off of my table when i was watching a movie with my
little sister. It seems that the problem is the Clunk cluck noise of death. I am well in high
school so i doubt that i have enough money for a specilist to help me if their is anything i can try
or anything i can do to fix it myself please tell me. Also how much would it cost to get 700GB
worth of files recovered. Yep 700GB they are all my files. I put files on their to free up space and
dont lecture me about backing up becasue that was my only backups. So please if anyone could
help me i would highly appreciate it. Oh and do the recovery specialest check the files i have
some files that are not 100% legal on it.
Thanxs in advance
Sakthi Ananth, 22. August 2010, 23:25

I accidentally put my hard disk on my room surface , since that my HD didnt work .
i want my HD data .
please help me.
lazai, 18. August 2010, 2:27

I accidentally plugged my pc cable on my hard drive..
since then my pc does not recognise it
is this something easily remedied???
tha..
Vandidaz, 10. August 2010, 1:28

My hardly used 250GB Seagate external HDD started to make whining noises. I had it opened and
it appears the disc is not turning. I only got 60GB data on it (including my wedding clips). I would
really love to get my data back. Does any of the above trick work? Is there a way to recover my
data? Needless to say I will never buy any crap made in China again!! Many thanks.
gurpreet , 9. August 2010, 3:34

hi
my WD hdd 500gb detected by the pc and light also glow
but the hd is not workin when it meant to run
i ve use recover my files software for recovering my but all went in vain
plz suggs me sm tips asap
so i m able to my run hd again

thanks in adv
waitin for ur reply
Abbey Joe , 3. August 2010, 7:05

please help me to recover my external 500 GB harddisk and repair it now
Aaron Walker, 30. July 2010, 5:26

I really ned help to recover a hard drive that wasw an external hard drive. my usb port broke off
completely and now i cannot get access to the information i need for court and if i lose my kids i
will have nothing left to live for. so please help me fix my problem cause i know it can be done
but i just don know how to do it \\
Thanks Aaron Walker
michael, 23. July 2010, 10:54

Thanks!!! i just swapped hard drive casings and voila, it works!
Kyle Turner, 20. July 2010, 19:43

Hi Pablo,
I have a WD Passport portable hard drive and Ive had it for about three years. It was a 320 GB
model, and it had been working fine until the last month. The computer refuses to read it. I took
it to a Geek Squad member today and they said that the disk does not spin. Is there anyway I can
retrieve the data from this hard drive. I have all my music on it, and it would be about $500 or so
down the drain. Please help! Thanks! :D
- Kyle Turner
Shaitian, 11. July 2010, 2:57

I had an interesting problem with my hard drive recently, and i was seeking answers but couldnt
find them until i got here and saw your number 4 option and tried it but it didnt work; but after
doing that i decided to remove the foam that was put between the hard drive and the hard drive
chip and clean the chip off and that fixed the problem instantly. The foam itself had melted onto
half the board was was really bad on some of the chips. Someone more tech savvy can probably
explain why the foam was hindering the hard drive but i cannot. Hopes this helps someone else.
Kelly Dz, 9. July 2010, 15:56

This tutorial is wonderful but I am hoping someone can help me with a problem with my external
hard drive. When I hook it up to the USB, the computer detects that it is there (it shows up on
the task bar with the icon to Safely Remove Hardware) but when I go to My Computer it doesnt
show up. I tried to follow another site directions to fix the problem and went to Manage under My
Computer and then Disk Management to change the drive it goes to. It says Disk 1 Unknown
Not Initialized and there is a little red arrow pointing down on the icon of the drive. But when I
click on Disk 1 Properties it says Western Digital and says it is working properly. When I try to
initialize the disk it lets me choose partition style (MBR or GPT). When I click MBR and initialize it

says Incorrect Function. So I am at a complete loss. I was going to try cleaning the connectors as
suggested but I have no idea how to get it out of the external hard drive casing. ANY help or
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Andy, 5. July 2010, 17:28

hiya hope i can be helped my sata hard drive started making a clicking noise and when it went to
boot up i got a black screen saying operating system not found can any 1 help me plz as i have
precious data i need to get off it
edu, 5. July 2010, 3:21

My hard drive is making the click of death. How long can i keep it before sending it to the
specialist because i do not have the kind of money they are demanding. I hope it can stay for as
long as possible. Their charge is more than what i earn in a month, but i have hope of being rich
one day.lol. really i do.
Suril, 2. July 2010, 14:40

I have a Western Digital My pasport Hard drive and it makes the sound of death,,
i tried the refrigerator plan and it didnt work..do i have to send it to recovery center or is there
another way around?Thanks
kennedy, 1. July 2010, 11:52

I am lucky i come a cross your home page interesting
Yura, 30. June 2010, 10:48

Hi, I dropped my WD passport external hard drive by accident. The blue light of the hard drive is
on, it produces interruputed buzzing voiced sounds when it is plugged to the computer (but not
clicking sounds) for a few seconds, the computer detects it but the drive is not showing in My
computer. It says: the usb mass storage device has malfunctioned. Can I recover my photos in any
way? Many thanks
James, 15. June 2010, 7:14

Toshiba Satellite L305-S5955
Windows error recovery
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be there cause
If windows files have been damaged or configured incorrectly, startup repair can help diagnose
and fix the problem. if power was interrupted during startup, choose windows start normally.
Launch Startup repair(recommended)
Start windows normally
Then when I press enter on start windows normally, it shows as loading but never loads
completely to take me to the SIGN IN screen to put my password.

Now, when I press enter on Launch Startup repair it then takes me to this
Window has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.
Then it says,
This error can be cause by unplugging a removeable storage device such as an external usb drive
while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is
failing. Make sure any removeable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.
If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.
Status: 0xc00000e9
Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred.
***NOTE***: I have located and removed the hard-drive to test it under the same exact laptop and
the results are the same.
Is is possible for me to recover valuable data?(All saved on a Notepad)
Is there a solution? I really cant afford to lose it.
Please help.
Thank You

Michael
Follow these steps:
1) Take the hard drive out of the USB enclosure and insert it on a new enclosure, see if it gets
detected by Windows
2) If it does not get detected by Windows, plug it in directly to a computer and see if it gets
detected by the BIOS of the computer.
3) If it gets detected use a data recovery program. If it does not, your only option is a data
recovery service.
Michael Nieckoski, 9. June 2010, 13:56

OK got one for you I havent been able to do much with this.
Hitachi Deskstar 500GB T7K500. I was using it in an external USB enclosure and it fell off the CPU
and banged on the floor (less than 3 feet).
It now makes musical tones when powered up, a repeating set of humming-like tones, very
musical for about 30 seconds then goes quiet. Sometimes, the CPU will give the sound that it
knows a device has been plugged in. The drive does NOT spin up.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
mike

Hi Devkrishna
Sounds like a corrupt partition table, I would use a data recovery program. I recommend Recover
my Files
devkrishna, 6. June 2010, 10:37

Hi dear
i have WD external portable 120 gb hard drive MDL NO WD1200XMSB-00 S/N WXEY07Q89223 R/N
A4B, This hardrive i using from 1.5 years back. but now it will dedect by computer i mean drive
will apper on computer and also opne but their will not any may document and file.i try to
recovery but i unable. it has approx 29 gb document very importent so can you please please
advise to me how to get this file and documents.
Lucy-Fay, 1. June 2010, 16:25

Hi.
Is there any chance of accessing an external hard drive after it says it has malfunctioned.. its
saying it is now an unknown device.. as it manage to install but nothing is popping up for the
device?
I cant access anything.. And Its about 6 months of photography work
Please help
Lucy
Usman , 1. June 2010, 3:45

I have a problem with my hard disk. My hard disk is WD300. It is affected with bad sector and i
have very important data in it. I try to attach with another hard drive. But its speed is very very
slow. And when i open my computer it take nearly 15 mints. The hard is detected and i can see it
clearly. But not of his partition is opening while i have tried many time and wait nearly 1 hour of
it. Plz tell me how i can get data from it the data is very important for me. Thanks.
For give me guidance My email address is usman4040@gmail.com, Usman_wali2002@yahoo.com
katherine medlin, 30. May 2010, 11:19

Dude you saved years of games pics music and tons of movies for me thanks a lot i really mean it.I
put it in freezer like u said had to a few times but oh my gosh way worth it.It really does work
thanks kat
Tyna, 24. May 2010, 20:07

Hi Pablo,
I have a 320gb WD external drive that Ive been using for a little over a year now and one day it
does not get detect by Windows XP. I had try to use Linux to boot it, but still unable to get
detection.
So i need your advise how to solve my problem because right now Im only care to save all my
data on the hdd.
Jeff, 24. May 2010, 18:34

Hi Pablo, I have a problem with my external hard drive, basically is making that clicking noise. I
already tried to put it on the freezer, but it wont work. My external hard drive is 500GB and I
have around 250 GB of files on my drive. I was wondering if you would be able to help me fix my
drive if i mail it to you, and if you could tell me your charge as well. Thank You

Nick, 21. May 2010, 11:18
Hi there,
I got a problem with my seagate 500GB seaagent Desk. I dropped my external hard disk on the
carpet from the computer tower and also when the computer connects with the harddisk, and
then the computer automatically restarts too. After that, my hd does not work anymore. The
computer does not detect the hardisk, and also the harddisk does not turn on the light when I
connect with the power. When I put the hd close to my ear, I can hear the hd runs, but it sticks.
I have some important data in the hard disk!!!So please give me a solution for me to find out how
to retrieve the data or make the harddisk work again. THANKS
Kristen, 16. May 2010, 8:18

Hi,
Are you still running your data recovery service?
This is my situation
I have treated my WD external drive like gold, then one day I was transporting it to a different
room and it fell out of my hands and hit the wood floor.
I didnt think much of it, until I went to use it a couple days later and the drive clicked ~4 times
and went undetected.
Would you be able to help?!
Thank you,
~Kristen
Steven Bayne, 15. May 2010, 5:03

Hi!
Incident:
A couple of days ago, I ejected my WD 1 TB external from my laptop. First, I unplugged it from
the back of the laptop. I then waited till the light turned off on the external. From there, I
unplugged the power from the external, followed by the USB cable. Here is where things went
awry. After unplugging the cables from the back of the external, I started to stand up(I was
kneeling because my laptop was on a flat wooden chair) and my hand hit the bottom of the chair.
I was not expecting to hit the chair so in surprise I dropped the external.
Aftermath:
I moved everything to a table and tried plugging up my external again to my laptop. It detected a
new device, said it was installed and should work properly. That, of course, was strange to me. I
look under My Computer to see the drive and nothing. I eject the device, try again. Nothing. I can
hear it make the same spinning sounds like it used to when you first plug it in, but nothing.
Attempt to fix:
My problem sounds like number 4 exactly, so I tried the eraser. It did clean off the contacts quite
well like you said in this article, but it still didnt help. What to do now?
Salvador, 14. May 2010, 12:09

Hi Pablo
Ive got a Western Digital Passport
and its stopped working like it should
I own a mac
I plug it in and it appears in the finder menu (list)
but when I click on it it does not open it just disappears (Finder closes down)
So I cant access the info on the hard drive

Any ideas on how I could get the info off the hard drive?
please
thanks
Salvador
Dan, 11. May 2010, 20:19

Thanks for this Pablo. Was slighly suspicious at first this article was a promotional write-up
Recover My File, but just using the program now to drag all my photos off an external drive that
would just prompt me to format it whenever it was connected. Looks like I might of lost a few of
the long filenames, but apart from that, a very happy camper here :)
Mitchplaza888, 9. May 2010, 12:14

In my case i have a 350Gb WD drive and when i start it i hear it spin for a total of 20 seconds
while making clunking noises then i just stops. It even had enough time to install the drivers on
my computer but has an error in my disk management.My question is, if I should freeze the drive
and is there any way that i would be able to fall back on the option of sending it out to be
recovered after freezing.
Warren C, 6. May 2010, 22:07

Pablo Please Help!
I used the wrong plug, my laptop plug, to power my external 500gb hard drive. The hard drive did
not turn on and I realized i was using a higher voltage plug. I found another external enclosure
and the hard drive would not turn on either, nor would the enclosure. I went to best buy and
their computer wouldnt turn in with the hard drive installed. From what system recovery
companies have said, it might just be an electrical error on the main board.
I really need to know: should I simply replace the board with a new one? and will that likely solve
an issue of this nature? I know computer companies jack up prices to do things I do for my friends
for free but I have never delt with this yet Ive built my own computer. Please let me know how
I might fix this on my own.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Warren
abbas esmail, 6. May 2010, 14:52

Dear pablo,
icame across your site and desperatly in need of yor help
i have 1tb Wd extr harddrive 800gb data in it .it stopped working suddenly. the drive is not
detectable even in BIOS.i have my documents and photos movies music ect .i sent the drive in two
diffrent datarecovery centre here in dubai but both returned back saying that the drive is dead
and head is gone .i dont know what they mean. now i want to send it to u ,if possible can u give
me ur email id and contacts
my email is abbasem@gmail.com
thanks abbas esmail
Armando, 6. May 2010, 14:06

I have a 500gb wd passport (scorpio blue). Its about a year old. I connected the SATA interface

directly into a desktop with same results as when connected through the USB bridge. It spins on
and communicates its model to the computer (reading WD500GB) (the light blinks and seems to
attempt to mount in USB connection) but will not mount. It had a slight bump that morning but
not sure if that was the reason why it died. It seems like it is not hardware, but not sure. Any
recommendations?
thank you in advance
Stefanakos, 2. May 2010, 16:04

Pablo S.O.S !!! My hard drive fell on the floor from one meter height and now it does that cling
noise,but also the light indicator of power doesnt get red,it looks dead,although i can hear the
fan cooling the HD.From the solutions u kindly suggest here in this article,what would u suggest
me to do? If i get the HD in the fridge, is it for sure that the HD is going to die after a sort
period of time,after i get it out of the fridge? Or if i try that, i will be able to get it to a
technician to see what he can do?
Jan, 30. April 2010, 19:55

1TB WD Caviar Green. ESATA. 1 partition.Hi Pablo
Im experienced. have used the freezer trick myself for 12 years to recover from that condition.
Today My condition with 1TB WD Caviar Green. ESATA. 1 partition. Drive letter I: Externally
docked
This drive is externally docked. Was using as a shared drive on a simple 2 person WinXP network.
Rebooting the PC could scramble some files occasionnally. File handles not released when software
shut down on the Network PC before reboot. Not serious and always fixed with ChkDsk f/r
Yesterday, same thing and running ChkDsk f/r took longer and when finished, there is the Drive
letter I: but without the label 1TB-2
windows sees the I; drive with difficulty. Takes 3 to 4 minutes. But, File Explorer cannot open the
drive.
Disks Utilities
Disk Director can find the disk after minutes. Starts to run ChkDsk under windows, but fails
Disk Symptoms
running normally. Temparture OK. After the drive settles down after WinXP fights to access the
disk, there is a Single click every 20 seconds and the access light at same time. Normal in my
experience
This appears to be an external circuit board issue. I will try the pencil eraser. If that doest work I
will buy a identical replacement drive today, xchange the boards and try that
If not work, then I want to know if you think I can send you the drive and $99 to recover the files?
Where do I send the drive to?
Best Regards,
Jan
PS your contact form is not working. Got 404 or no capcha image. 5 retries unsuccessfully
Diane, 29. April 2010, 14:57

I work for a school system and should be working off the H drive which should be backed up each
day. To make a long story short on Tuesday my computer started making a running sound and then
started clicking as if it was not connected and within 3 minutes my computer screen went black
and came up with a message. I sent it to a local store called Save Your Data and they have just
called me to say they could not see anything on my hard drive. They are contacting a Data
Recovering service which I know will cost a fortune but my boss said she will pay it. They are

contacting a company called CBL Data Recovery right now and should call me back today. I have
not tried the freezer method or other methods you described in your article but I dont know what
I will do without my information. What can be done in the future so this doesnt happen again?
abi, 26. April 2010, 7:52

Hello
My Freecome 160gb extrernal hard drive has stopped working. I normally have it on permanantly
and it has a power supply. I have tried it in another socket but still no joy. It has been making a
few whirring noises when I access it lately but I didnt give it much thought. Could it have
overheated? What can I do with it? It has 36gb of photos on! Can someone recover the data and
how much might they charge roughly?
Thanks
Abi
Mahesh, 17. April 2010, 19:47

My Laptop with SATA Hard driver does not boot. I took out the SATA Harddisk and connected to
another laptop Via SATA to USB connector, another laptop can detect extenal Harddisk driver and
however I cant access the same. It give me error saying C:\>CD F:\
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
Is there any hope to recover data , if so how ..
Wayne Kelly, 15. April 2010, 14:02

Hello Pablo.
I am hoping you can help me.
I have a SimpleTech 320 MD External HD (Model U35/320) that is not being detected by my
computer. This HD has over eight years of the only source of family photos and I am hoping there
is a way to access/save these photos. It was working one night and simply not working the next
morning. I purchased three (3) SimpleTech 320 HDs in December 2007 and two were gifts.
The SimpleTech 320 MD External HD has been used very little and has not been dropped. The red
AC power light shows and initially the HD blue light comes on but that is all and the HD is not
detected by the computer & I have tried several computers. There is no clicking noise and the
SimpleTech external HD has not been opened.
Pablo does this sound like the circuit board? Can you please advise what options I have to recover
the photos on my own and if necessary what companies you can recommend for data recovery.
Thank you.
Wayne Kelly
Dinora Galvan, 14. April 2010, 13:35

I own a Western Digital WDBABM0010BBK My Passport Essentia. and I believe my problem is your
first senerio, 1) Corrupted file system. The only think is that I can see all my folders but when I
try to open them to copy them somewhere else my files are not accesible to be copy. and the
ones that are accesible take from 30 min to an hour each, could be one picture taking that
long. Would this program work for me too.

B, 11. April 2010, 23:17
I had my hard drive in an enclosure and someone tripped over the wire causing the hard drive to
fall to the ground. I had a friend take a look for me and assured me that he knew what he was
doing, but after reading online I discovered you shouldnt open it unless its a dust free
environment and handled carefully. He opened it without gloves and i think he tried moving the
arm of the hard drive and it broke. Is there any way to fix this and if so how much? Can my data
be recovered given the circumstances? The issue I have is number two listed above. Please email
me back. Thanks!
Popular, 11. April 2010, 13:34

hi i needsome help pls my tb wd fell from my bed and it does not show up any more the blue
light still comes on as normal just not coming up help plsproblem is i have some stuff on it i
cant carry for a tech. to fix stuff that will crash my career (im very very popular and well known
in my country) help pls and every thing legal and illegal is on this drive) thanks for
understanding.
charles cudjoe, 9. April 2010, 11:03

my western digital hard drive fell off the ground and has stop working
my data on the, am really dying to have them on other drive but i cant
recover them
PC Engineer 2311, 5. April 2010, 16:02

The best thing you could actually do providing the files were copied from your computer to your
hard drive is instead of messing with the hard drive use a programme called recover my files.
When you copy files to your hard drive it leaves the origional on your computer and even if you
have deleted them, re-formatted your hard drive it will still recover them. Its a lot cheaper than
paying for data recovery, i run a computer shop and the amount of people that ask for this service
is unbelievable, tbh its keeping me in business considering the cheapest price for recovery is $275.
cara, 4. April 2010, 2:17

Thanks for this article!
I tried to send an email through the contact page, but I keep getting an error message, so I will
post here.
Basically the situation is thisI inherited my friends external hard drive (Samsung, 500GB,
HD501LJ) and tried to plug it into my computer. It clicks and the light is red. After a few
minutes, it stops clicking and the light turns blue, but my computer doesnt read it. Should I use
your freezer method? Or is that only if the computer can read the drive to begin with? I have a
spare desktop and I thought I could maybe insert this one as a slave drive, but I am not sure if
that is a good solution.
Any advice would be appreciated. The computer place near here quoted me $1000, which I dont
have. Thanks again!
Denvick, 3. April 2010, 21:40

hello,

I have a 500GB Adata external 2.5 hdd , a thin one.. I used it one day but while I selected some
files to copy to my main hard drive, I got a windows is not responding pop up and then
everything hang. When I turned on my laptop and plugged in back my external hdd, I got only the
drive name (eg. Local Disk G:) but no information about its size and no option for reformatting. I
dont hear any clicking nor beeps only the rrrrrrr..rrrrrrrrrr. rrrrrrrr sound. Whenever I try
to access it, my system does not respond. please help me, I dont want to loose those treasured
memories and important files in there. I dont have any experience fixing PCBs.. And I dont have
that much for a data recovery service.. Thank you,
Megs, 31. March 2010, 12:44

Hi,
I dropped my WD 250 GB MY Passport External Drive while I was moving, and the shell was slightly
open so I clicked it back together. Initially I used to get Drive is not recognized but, now it just
spins with a whirring noise and clicks. I think its the heads but, I am not sure if I should go get it
fixed with someone or if there is something I can do at home (besides the freezer trick). Can you
help me?
Megs
Donja, 29. March 2010, 17:27

Okyou seem to be the person in the knowso here goes.
I have a SimpleTech 320Gb pininfarinathat iswithout warningwithout droppingwithout clicking
or beeping or flashingnot recognized.
I disconnected all cords to move itand when I plugged it back in to the USBit was no longer
recognized.
I tried other USB ports and tried it on my laptopstill nothing.
It does power upbut thats it.
I have MANY irreplaceable filesHELP ME PLEASE.
MDiz, 29. March 2010, 16:15

Hey, I dropped an Aluratek 500GB external (WD HDD) from about a 2-foot distance on carpet; it
no longer works.
My computer is detecting the USB connection, but no drive shows up in My Computer. My HDD
sounds like its trying to run/boot up (Im not getting any clicking noises), but it makes the
whurrring noise for about 10 seconds before falling silent.
When I locate this drive as Drive 1 in Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management and try
to initialize the disk its telling me Incorrect Function.
The HDD still gives me all of the same complications whether its hooked up from its external
casing or if I run it directly into my computer.
Is it possible to recover any data from this external without sending it in for repair, or should I
just chuck it in the garbage?
Please help ><
Yoshi, 28. March 2010, 8:23

Hello Pablo,
I know there are many people with similar problems as me and I would like to thank you for going
out of your way to help people in trouble like me. You have no idea how lucky I feel to be to find

your site, after having the feeling of losing all hope.
I was recently transferring data to my Seagate FreeAgent Desk external hard drive, when my
computer froze and I was forced to restart it. I rebooted the computer, and noticed that the hard
drive took forever to read and when I tried copying one video file (about 300megs) it would have
an estimated 2 hours or so. When I tried to cancel the operation, it froze, and (I probably
shouldnt have done this) I pulled out the USB cable. The next day I tried to plug in my external,
and it would take approximately 5-10 min. before the drive was recognized, but when I tried to
open the drive, I would get an I/O device error and cannot open the drive. I have about 400
gigs used in the external out of the 1TB. It also does not make any sounds. Properties and such
also could not be viewed.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Durga, 26. March 2010, 9:25

Hi,
I am unable to contact you via the Contact US link at the top of this page as I get a Page Not
Found when I click submit.
Heres what my problem is I have a Toshiba 160GB portable hard drive that I dropped accidentally. I am hearing a clicking
noise and the hard drive is NOT getting detected. I tried connecting it to a couple of PCs/Laptops
one running XP and another Vista (if that makes any difference), but the Hard drive still wouldnt
get detect.
Is there a way that the files could be recovered or get the hard drive to work ?
Let me know if I need to ship it to you and the terms.
Thanks,
Durga
Doozy8, 20. March 2010, 16:40

I have a Maxtor 500GB SATA drive in a USB enclosure that I was using as additional storage. I
moved it to a new laptop in the house and it started up fine. Next time I connected it I heard
clicking. I am not able to get a PC to see this drive. Is there something you think can be done to
recover this data?
Thank you
ashish , 19. March 2010, 23:30

after using demo version of data recovery on my 320gb portable hd, i am able to takeout data
from it, but this thing is working very very slowly and not all the files i am able to recover.please
help.
Chris, 19. March 2010, 1:36

Hi
I dropped my external hard drive and when I connect the power it spins for 3 seconds and stops. I
tried the freezing but it did not help. Do you think I can still recover some files? Can you do that?
Thanks
Susan Ragsdale, 17. March 2010, 15:43
I have a seagate free agent 500 gb new external hard drive. Problem is I cant plug in usb
connection. When inserted into the hard drive, it comes right out and I can here rattling which
tells me that part of the connection is probably broken off inside. Now what do I do?
Yanni, 16. March 2010, 10:26

Hello, Ive been trying to contact Pablo Garcia by email but I get an error that the link
http://geekyprojects.com/thanks.html appears to be broken. Any other ways to contact him?
Scott Reece, 12. March 2010, 11:13

does your offer still hold for recovering data for a donation? If so, do you accept PayPal? If so,
please reply to scott.reece@charter.net and I will forward a more detailed description of how I
cannot get data from wd5000c37 that fell to the floor but is still recognized as a usb mass storage
device by my pc.
soL, 10. March 2010, 6:02

what would you say my chances are at getting desktop files off my aunts laptop? it got smacked
with a spindle of dvds right above where the internal drive is, and instantly locked up. tried
rebooting and it would get to the xp progress bar, advancing about 1% every 10 minuites before
locking up at about 1/4 the way. live cds lock up when trying to detect drive, and when i
connected it as slave in my machine, you cannot access it in my computer without it causing an
error. the drive makes normal read sounds about every 5 seconds, no strange noises i can hear =(
Billy, 9. March 2010, 17:53

Greetings Pablo,
My hard drive took a spill from the top of my computer tower. The screen flashed and said all
data has been deleted. The hard drive still shows the light like its on but I cant get a usb read on
my computer. I took it to a friends computer and the usb device was detected but It would not
locate the external drive. The hard drive light flashes on and I would like to try and salvage whats
been deleted. How do I get the computer to read the hard drive? Is it to late? The brand is a
calvary external hard drive I cant tell if the disc inside are spinning because its a pretty silent
unit. I would appreciate any advice on this matter.
Ralph, 5. March 2010, 9:04

I have a sony viao laptop which is about 4 years old, the hard drive recently stopped working, PC
world removed it and tried to connect it to 2 other computers, but they did not recognise the
hard drive hence I cannot retrieve any of my data. The only option they gave me was a lab test
which costs 700, but can I do something myself?
giulia, 4. March 2010, 13:04

ciao stato dato un pugno al pc portatile e da quel momento schermata blu,nel bios non rileva
hdd, beh ci sono le foto dei bimbi, del resto non mimporta, come posso recuperarle? grazie
Mary, 26. February 2010, 23:26

I have an external drive I use to back up files. Occasionally, the PC would not recognize it. Then,
later, it would work. Since I used the PC system to auto back up, the ext. drive would fill up and
I would then delete files. Now, the red light and yellow light are on constantly, but there is no
whirring sound and none of my computers will recognize it. My feeling is that it jammed with too
many files. Is this possible and how difficult would it be to recover the files?
Maung AUng, 26. February 2010, 10:27

Dear Pablo
I accidentally dropped my WD external Hard Drive (Laptop drive). My pc does not recognize it
when connected. I took it up to my IT department and they told me (they open HD) that the
head that read and write data is broken. Thus data cannot be recovered. Is there anyway you
can help? Any hope?I am so depressed.
Thanks
Richard, 25. February 2010, 21:28

This is very informative. thanks.
Every time a turn on my computer. it says that their was a error reading drive and to press ctrl alt
delete to restart. and when i do this, it simple says the same thing once again.
Carlos, 25. February 2010, 14:28

Very useful info!
Having a problem with WD 320GIG HDD not being recognized now?
Just happened last week, the platter is spinning & no clicking noise. Ive connected the drive
externally but still nothing? Might getting a new board work? Because before finding this article I
was trying to find the exact same drive to replace the guts to see if that might work?
Any advice?
Thanks in advanced!
Mahmud, 22. February 2010, 7:12

hello, could somebody suggest me what should i do to recover my data, since, my Western Digital
80GB (1st ) was not being detected then i opened it and took the disk out, i put it in Western
Digital 320gb (2nd) drive (replacement with one of 3 disks). it didnt work. i took the 80gb disk
back and expecting 320gb to work as usual with its own disk. but no! i m in doubt it might cause
problem to the needle of the second one. Also i had a 2to3 milimiter scratch on the 1st disk.
1. is it possible to recover data from 1st one?
2. is it possible for the 320gb drive to work again? Thanks for your help..
Mahmud
Mike, 17. February 2010, 22:28

I dropped my hammer ext. drive about a foot onto my hardwood floor. i plugged it in and it beeps
and clicks. the power light does come on. nothing appears on my computer. I have all my sons

baby pictures on this and some music. is there anything you can help me do here?
thanks
Mike
JRS, 15. February 2010, 0:17

Hi,
I recently knocked over my WD external Hard drive. It powered up after, but wanted me to
reformat it. I took it out of the case, and installed it as my 2nd SATA Drive. Had to go into BIOS
and turn on Auto so my computer would recognize it.Am using XP, Followed the directions:
If you are using XP do the following
Click on Start
Settings
Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Disk Management
Under disk management it states the following: Layout=Partition, Type=Basic, File System is blank,
Status=Healthy, When I click on properties, it says
Right now Im doing a scan with the free trial version of recover my files software. Is there any
other way for me to recover the data without purchasing the recovery software from GetData.
Thanks.
JRS
Nightly, 14. February 2010, 19:45

Hi Pablo. Recently I found this page while searching for the problem with my portable external HD
Maxtor OneTouch III Mini.
The problem is when the drive is inserted Explorer hangs on. Especially when you try to reach My
Computer it hangs. After I plug out for a second drive appears on My Computer and then gives the
message You need format the disk in drive before you can use it. Device Manager shows the
Drive, and Properties available for drive except Policy section its hanging there. and the
computer nor Shutdown nor Startt if the drive isnt plugged out.
I tried Command prompting (both in Windows mode and with Bootable Windows Installation disk
where provided Command prompting) it also cant access the drive. How to be? What is the
solution for that?
I also tried disabling the device in Device Manager. well, PC doesnt hang on in this situation. But
anyway its useless.
Im using Vista Ultimate on my laptop so I checked all these mostly on Vista. I also tried Windows
XP. The drive is recognized and drivers are loaded but in My Computer doesnt show and taskbar
hangs. so almost the same result in Windows XP. Tried WIndows 7. It shows up drive (without its
name) on My computer (but after 1 minute) but I double click on it green bar on the upper side
(in the address bar) shows the progress but sure the device is not getting open.
I opened the case, and could get out this 2,5 Seagate Momentus 5400.3 . As it is OEM product its
not provided 5 year warranty. What is the solution for this?
gospelmidi, 14. February 2010, 4:00

I have read the article and all the comments. I had already frozen my HDD before reading this.
The CMOS no longer recognizes the drive (Maxtor STM3200820A 200GB). Im shopping for another
old drive to replace the circuit board, but that probably wont help now. I can afford to lose
anything else for which I have no backup, except I do need one 20KB .doc file. But I have to do a
search for it, which will probably use up any remaining lifetime I can get out of this drive, even if

a new (used) circuit board helps the CMOS to recognize it.
Anyway, is there any specific HDD I should buy for continuous 24/7 service? I can buy a new 1
year 300 GB 10K U320 SCSI for $260 shipped. I would prefer to buy an ATA or SATA drive because
it is cheaper . . . but I get what I pay for, I know. Thank you for any suggestions.
Stephanie, 14. February 2010, 3:48

oh goodness could you help me too please!!!
1 week ago my laptop didnt want to start up.
a blank black screen showed when trying to boot up & said some system not found.
yesterday i brought it into a repair shop & the guy tested the hard drive & told me its dead since
the hard drive motor spoils, no cure for this or may be other specialist could help.
Im quite worry about that because I have around 30GB personal private files inside..(^_^) *shy*
well like what you said, it makes the click click noise after i on my laptop..
Nichole, 14. February 2010, 0:02

Hi Pablo,
I just came across this article and all of your great advice. I dont know too much about
computers but I am a do-it-yourself type person with just about everything. Right now I am just
trying to figure out if it is the click of death that you refer to. I was not about to pay an
outrageous amount for data recovery and I was wondering how likely it was that I would be able
to recover any data.
So I have a Western Digital My Book 320GB external hard drive. It was on and I accidentally
knocked it over and it fell about 2 feet onto my carpet. This happened over a year ago but I gave
up after I found out how expensive it is for data recovery. When I turn it on it doesnt make a
clicking sound but it makes a sort of buzz sound followed by a beep 5 times in a row. The light is
on and Windows recognizes it but it does not show up under My Computer. Does this sound like
I have a chance of recovering the data or am I look at a data recovery service?
Thanks so much!
Alex, 9. February 2010, 16:16

Hi Pablo Garcia, This is the great page i found ever online to recover my frozen hd, I thrilled
when I managed to pull of my data using recover my files from my almost dead hdd, but
unfortunately none of my videos, pictures files are workable they just seems to be icons. could yo
help with that? to pull of my data from almost dead
Rena, 5. February 2010, 12:34

Hey Pablo,
I have had a 320 GB WD HDD for over a year now that stopped working. It accidently fell down on
the floor, and now when i plug it in my PC it lights, get recognized as a hardware, then makes the
death soud :( and nothing happens. Ive googling for a solution and tried to check DisK
Management. Its not listed, actually there is something called DISK 1 that needs Initialization but
even if I try to initialize it it doesn work.
All my data is on it and I really need it :( Shall I try the freezer solution as the HDD symptoms
match with it?? If it doesnt work will I still be able to send it to an IT professional to recover my
data? I just am trying to recover my data without paying too much money i can not afford..
Please advise

Jairo Mesa, 5. February 2010, 12:25
I have a Hitachi 1tb 7200rpm hard drive hardly with it almost 7 months, and from a while ago, it
was like hanging and the OS froze for a while, and then resumed, but several times a day. I sent
it to a technician but he said it was alright. However, i hooked it up to my pc yesterday and i
was planning to do a low level format to it just in case. but then, it stopped functioning Power
is flowing to it, but i cant seem to hear or feel the reading process I dont have any important
information in it, but i need it. I was reading some forums and i wanted to try the freezing trick,
but idk i just want it to function BIOS detects it as Hard Drive, but with no info.. please some
advice
DEEPAK, 5. February 2010, 1:22

THANKS BOSS WONDERFULL HELP, ALL IS WELL
Drew, 3. February 2010, 23:13

I closed my laptop too hard and the computer froze. When I restarted it goes to a black screen
for a while, then eventually to the system recovery manager. I took the hard drive out and
connected it to another computer and could not access anything. I did diagnostics and it said I
needed to replace the hard drive, so I did. I took the old drive to a friend who works at a
computer tech store and he tried to hook it up to a linux system and could not access anything. Is
there anything I can do to get the data from the old drive?
Nicole, 2. February 2010, 15:23

Hi there,
I need HELP! I have an external HD Western Digital 120GB that was working fine one day and the
next morning was not being recognized by my laptop. I plugged it into my HP and it recognizes
the X drive but doesnt pull the data up. When the external HD is plugged in the green light is on
and you can hear a rrrrr click, rrrrr click, rrrrr click sound and then it goes quiet (like its no
longer running) but the green light is still on. I need to extract the data off this ex drive what
route would you take to do this?
Please help asap!
Thanks
Nicole
alba, 30. January 2010, 22:47

Hello Pablo, I have an external harddrive (simpletech 500GB). I tripped on the powercord and it
fell 3 feet from the ground, while it was running (listening to some music from the harddrive).
Winamp started to skip so I powered off the harddrive and powered it back on. I was left with a
minute of beeping and then silence. The drive never spins and my computer doesnt see anything
occupying that specific USB port. Ive tried connecting the harddrive directly to a motherboard to
no avail.
thank you in advance!!
Johnny, 28. January 2010, 8:17

Dear Pablo,
I am using a IBM R61e laptop. I normally turned it off this morning, and in the afternoon, when i
tried to turn it on again, theres this zi zi zi.zi zi zizi zi zi noise coming out from the hard
drive, and it failed to turn on, with system warning: initializatoin error.
then i took the harddrive out and use it as an external one connecting to another running laptop,
again, this zi zi zi.zi zi zizi zi zi. noise coming again, and this one can not be recognized
by the windows system. From my observatoin, the external harddrive was not working while
connecting after the noise.
Do you have any suggestion on what i can do to get my data back? Thank you in advance.
How to detect Hard disk drive - General Hardware (Pingback), 27. January 2010, 9:56
[...] Re: How to detect Hard disk drive Can you still access data from your hard drive ? If yes,
just copy all your data to another drive. If not read through the following articles who give step
by step instructions on how to recover data from a broken hdd. Recover a Dead Hard Disk
wikiHow How to recover data from a broken hard drive [...]
Roberto, 27. January 2010, 9:33

Hello, my HDD fell from table, now the computer doesnt detect it and it makes a soft noise Beep
beep. should i try to recover? they asked me 800 euros
Raiden, 24. January 2010, 1:11

Hi! I have WD external HDD 500gb and there is a lot of data inside i still can see the data from
inside, but the problem is I cant open any files and i cant copy most of the data, i heard there is
a sound (tik tik tik tik). I tried to make backup using recovery program but still doesnt work,
when I restarted my laptop it says the harddrive need to check when starting to read the
harddrive it says the harddrive is totally unreadable. Please help me to recover all my data back
thanks!!!
AUGI, 23. January 2010, 19:58

Hi,
I accidentally dropped my External WD HD, and now it is giving me a USB Device not Recognized
message, the light still turns on and the HD sound seems normal, any suggestions Please???
Yunus Lau , 21. January 2010, 22:13

Hi, Pablo Garcia ! thx for your information. its realy helpfull for me. ive a question, what about
if my laptop harddrive cannot detected on bios, could it recover the data using recovery softwares
? thanks alot !
Alex, 19. January 2010, 6:44

Hi,
Thanks for the info, the problem im having is when i turn my computer on it gets to the welcome
screen then freezes. Ive tried startin in safe mode bu it still freezes, i have been told by experts

it could be a hard drive fault and i shud buy a hard drive docking station to try and retrieve my
data. i havnt noticed any noises coming from the hard drive.
any ideas?
Thanks!
RaShell, 13. January 2010, 12:51

My computer will turn on, but will not get past the beginning blue hp page where you can press
the f keys to boot etc. It freezes on that screen. I have hooked the hard drive up to another
computer and it locks it up too. My computer runs fine with a new hard drive in it. My concern is
retrieving the data from the old hard drive. Do I have any options? I am electronically,
technically, and mechanically impaired. I have many pictures and videos of my daughter on the
drive and am desperate to get them back. Please help!!!
Ramzi, 13. January 2010, 11:14

hi i have a problem wih the desktop, well i turned the pc on and it launched properly, then a
few minutes the screensaver as usual started but suddenly after like 5 minutes the screen went
black as if the power saver started so few minutes later i movedthe mouse so the pc wakes up but
it didnt so i pressed the esc with no results , so i restarted the pc but same thing the screen is
black but the fan of the motherboard is runing, bt i was impressed when i saw the on/off button
and the reset button both are on, so i disconnected the pc from the power and reconected it with
same results. so i bought a USB cable and took out the HD and conected directly to the power
source and hooked it to my laptop via the USB cable, but the hard disk didnt work, i spoke to
some tech ppl but seems they didnt want to get involved as the advised me to buy another HD but
the issue is that i have looots of pix for my kids for over 7 years since they were day one, guys im
desperate and really need help as these priceless pix are so important. advise me what to do.
Indra, 13. January 2010, 6:27

Thanks Pablo for the reply.
The computer wont turn on. I already connect the hdd to my younger brothers computer but
same things happened. The computer wont turn on. Im not sure what the problem. Both
computer using Windows XP.
As your suggestion to use Linux, Im not try it yet because Im not familiar with linux system. You
have any suggestion?
Lil Sis, 12. January 2010, 19:40

Thanks Pablo. I will definitely try replacing the circuit board. Ive got a little hope now. I think
after this experience I will make sure my data is backed up somewhere else as well.

Indra, The computer wont turn on? or wont get to Windows? Have you tried connecting it to
another computer? If you connect it to another computer and the problem is still happening. then
use a computer with linux or a linux live CD to boot your computer and then get your data out
using another external Hard Drive. Sometimes when Windows detects corruption on a Hard Drive it
shuts itself down.
Anonymous, 12. January 2010, 11:49

Pablo Garcia said:
Please people.. dont focus on the freezer trick! while this trick works very well, you are
risking loosing your data. Try every single alternative first before trying the freezer trick.
Ive been doing IT work for quite a long time. Pablo is right. Ive used it as a last resort, and only
in the right circumstances. In countless thousands of computers Ive worked on, Ive only used
that trick three times. One time, I used a variation of the trick which was rather dangerous. This
was for a friend of mine. I wouldnt ever do this for a customer, as it was risky and time
consuming. The bearings inside the drive were overheating and seizing. I tried the illustrated
method first, but it only allowed for less than 5 minutes of successful access in this particular
case.
I froze the drive inside a ziplock bag. After about an hour, I submerged it almost all the way in a
tupperware full of ice water. The bags opening was just above the water, and the connectors
were up. I attached it to my recovery machine, and turned it on. Over the next 8 hours, I
managed to recover just over 50% of his data. During those 8 hours, I babysat it. I spent my time
siphoning out excess water, and carefully adding ice cubes by hand. Since the drive was running
very hot (because of the bearing failure), the ice melted pretty quickly. Over the 8 hours, I used
all the ice from the ice maker, which is roughly 1 cubic foot. (loose cubed ice, not one solid
block), plus whatever the ice maker made during the period. Needless to say, it would not have
been good if water got on the drive, so it was tedious work. The result was an improvement over
the 0% it looked like we could recover otherwise. With all that, I dont recommend it to anyone,
unless you like the idea of submerging electronics in water, and frying them (or yourself).
Indra, 10. January 2010, 6:53

My computer have 2 hdd, WD 160GB as system files WD 320GB as movie and data files. Last night,
my PC suddenly shutdown without any warning. Then from that moment, my PC cannot switch ON.
After do some troubleshooting, my hdd WD 320GB problem. When I remove this hdd, my PC can
running normally. When im trying to connect this hdd to my system, my PC wont start (turn on).
So i need your advise how to solve my problem because right now Im only care to save all my
data on the hdd.

James: Try to take it out of its current enclosure and use a different one. If that does not work
and the hard drive still does not make a sound, then the plates are most likely not spinning and
you are going to have to sent it to a data recovery company.
James Rizzo, 9. January 2010, 12:12

Hello, I dropped my WD HD from the table by accident. Once i plug it into my mac it turns on for
1 sec then it turns off. The HD doesnt make a sound..the light just turns on for a sec and then
turns off as i put the firewire into the slot. 2 months ago i tried to plug it in again and it worked
for a day but then i unplugged it and then plugged it back in, it wont turn on again. Please help
Me!

LIL SIS: Sound like the board may be fried. If you can find the same exact hard drive with the
same firmware loaded on the board you might be able to do it, look on ebay for a hard drive
exactly like yours and ask the seller about the serial numbers on the board.

Lahavana: I would try something like a software recovery option in your case. However if the
plates are not reaching full speed the arm will never be able to read the data and you will have
to send it to a data recovery company.

Mary Donoho: You do not have to waste your money, thats what trial versions are for, so you can
try before you buy ;)
RHODAboii, 7. January 2010, 10:24

I also have the same problem cause my aunt knocked over my HD and then when I plug it, it
creates this rrrrrr click click, rrrrrr click click, sound and then nothing. What can I possibly do? Is
it jst because not TOO much power is entering I used to have that problem before wherein my HD
works with only one cable and now that cable is nowhere to be found please help.
Lil Sis, 5. January 2010, 19:18

Hi,
This it the first page that Ive come across where people have had the same problem as me. I
have a 500gb WD external drive that Ive been using for a little over a year now and one day it
stopped working and it smelled like something was burning in it. Since the warranty expired
already, I opened it up to put it in a HD enclosure. I plugged in the power cable and SATA cable
like it says and when I turned it on, the drive started smoking where the power cable was plugged
in. I turned it off immediately. Do you know if there is any way for me to recover the data on my
own without having to use the power source? Or would I have to send it to a recovery service? Or
is the data just gone for good? Any suggestions you could give would be greatly appreciated.
Lahavana, 5. January 2010, 17:10

Arnold if I may suggest try taking the hard disk out of the external casing, just be careful not
to damage the hard disk inside when scooping around with the screw-driver. The same thing
happenned to me this summer (I own a WD as well 500 Gb which is currently dying on me from
a different reason) a power shortage ocurred after a thunder-storm and when the power came
back on, it fried the part that powered the hard disk. If you remove or replace that one, your
hard disk should be just fine. And dont worry about the data: it is completely safe. Heres a
video Ive found on Youtube that shows a similar process with a WD My Book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlySnyJ0CQ&feature=related
Lahavana, 5. January 2010, 16:17

Hello there and thank you for taking the time to write this article it brings a small ray of
sunshine for those of us who have hard disk troubles. Im writing to you more out of desperation,

seeking another opinion I have a somewhat simmilar problem as everyone else, with my hard
disk its a 500 Gb Western Digital, an ex- external (I say ex because its original USB and
power board got fried during a power shortage, so I simply extracted the drive out of its enclosure
and Ive been using it, for the past 6 months, as a regular SATA drive, using one of those SATA to
USB connectors). The problem is that, unprotected as it is, its been knocked down by a careless
friend and hit the floor (marble) with its short side now it wont start anymore it starts
spinning, the SATA2USB recognizes it, but it keeps spinning, with a dreadful buzzing sound
(something like a cross between a damaged CPU fan and a kite in the wind) with some small
clicks from time to time and it stops after a while, without showing up on the computer where
its hooked up. In Device Manager, it simply shows up as USB device, under the Disk Drives
category and in Details, it says Device type: Disk drive and thats about it. Ive tried the freezer
trick, seeing as nothing else worked (hooking it up on various computer, gently knocking on its
side, changing SATA cable) and it still didnt work I only got it to spin for a bit longer before
stopping the SATA to USB dongle is recognised by the computer, but not the hard disk Is there
anything else that can be done with it (except the professional data-recovery method I am but a
poor student in her final years), or should I simply kiss it good bye and start rebuilding my data?
Thank you in advance for your answer (and IF you have time to answer).
Mary Donoho, 5. January 2010, 15:04

I have the blue screen of death and took my Dell Inspiron 6000. It is about 4 years old, and I
took it to Best Buy Geek Squad. They said they couldnt recover anything from the hard drive
(said it was bad Dell did too and sent me a new one). Anyway, Best Buy wanted $300.00 to send
it off to try and recover data. My question for you is: Is there anything I can do personally? If I
download the File recovery software and put it in my CD drive will my system be able to read it? I
dont want to waste my money buying the software if it cant read it. Also, I am shoppoing for an
external hard drive for my laptop (so this doesnt happen to me again) do you have suggestions
on the best ones to buy. Please let me know. I have 4 years of photos I need to try and recover
as well as music, and other files.
Thanks so much!

If you burned the HD board then you need to replace that board, fo your hard drive is external,
then insert the hard drive in a different enclosure.

Please people.. dont focus on the freezer trick! while this trick works very well, you are risking
loosing your data. Try every single alternative first before trying the freezer trick.

Hi Matt, yes I do have experience with this issue. have you tried to use MHDD? try it and see if it
detects it.
Arnold, 4. January 2010, 0:55

I may have burnt out my 1 TB WD by plugging in a different power cord by accident. It wont even
turn on at all when I plug it in. The light doesnt come on and I dont know what to do. I have
over 500 G of files that i need recovered. How would I do that?
Ray, 3. January 2010, 21:30

Pablo,
I have an external Iomega 500 GB USB hard drive. Today, my wife accidentally knocked it over on
the desk. Now all we get is a beep from the drive every 5 seconds. Will not spin up but powers on
and then beeps. Took cover off of carrier and the drive turns out to be a Seagate 500 GB
Barracuda SATA drive. Tried plugging drive into another PC via SATA cable and still got the beep
every 5 seconds and would not boot up. Im trying the freezer trick you mentioned as we speak
but am not confident that will do the trick. Any guidance/suggestions???
Alex, 3. January 2010, 4:58

Hi,
I am having the click click click of death on my laptop hdd, now it cannot be booted or
recognized, it happened so randomly Is it safe to place it in the freezer and give it a try?
Thanks a lot for ur help.
Matt, 31. December 2009, 14:09

Pablo:
I have a WD Caviar (WD3200JB) that was in a machine that suffered a power failure. I have moved
it to a new machine, and it is not detected by the BIOS on startup. I have tried several ribbon
cables and power plugs. I was most interested in solution #3. Do you have experience with this
sort of drive/problem?
Olivia Alston, 26. December 2009, 9:51

I havent the first clue about computers or hard drives, and I really need help!
I have a DELL inspiron 1501 laptop and it just didnt have enough space for my mass amounts of
music and downloads, so my Dad gave me a Maxtor One Touch 160GB. Ive stored pretty much
everything on there.
The other day when I went to plug it into my laptop the cable wouldnt go into the hard drive. I
think the hard drive has been dropped and the wire inside the hard drive has been pushed
through.. I hope this is making sense, Im useless with these sort of things! Anyway, Im panicing
now because I cant access my music etc and my Dad would actually go mental with me if I told
him.. Could you please tell me how to fix this or where to send my hard drive to get it
repaired/recovered or whatever. And how much it may cost. Id really appreciate some advice!
Thanks,
Olivia
Joe, 24. December 2009, 16:29

Pablo:
Yes, the harddrive does spin. It tuns on, begins to spin then after 10 seconds it begins to click.
And no, it does not get recognized by windows which is the problem. I tried the freezer method
and did not work either, so Im not sure my options. Any help would be appreciated.
Joe:
Yes there are ways to get the data out. have you tried using any data extraction programs? Does
the hard drive spin at all? Does it get recognized by windows?
Joe, 22. December 2009, 14:40

My girlfriend, soon to be ex, wasnt paying attention and knocked over my external HDD. It was in
a secure place and only fell 1 foot into thick carpet, but now its clicking and I hear the disc
trying to start up but after clicking repeatedly it just stops and does nothing. My hdd also does
not show up on my mac or my pc, it doesnt come up at all. I have EVERYTHING on there, all my
tv shows, movies, etc but that is all replaceable if need be (although I would prefer not its
close to 1 tb), the main thing I am worried about losing are the pictures and documents I stored
on there. If there is a way to fix or recover these files, please let me know Im desperate and
reading a million google pages which arent helping.

Rosetta:
You must take the hard drive out of its enclosure first and insert it into another enclosure. Either
that or connect the hard drive directly to the computer as a slave or secondary master. If its
SATA then connect it to one of the available SATA ports. Get somebody to lend you an empty
external enclosure or buy one, they are very cheap if you live in the USA Also make sure you
purchase the right one. You need to be sure of the type of hard drive you have and the size Size
could be either 2.5 or 3.5 and type could be SATA or IDE.

Hi Ishwar Dont panic try using a data recovery program, like recover my files and see if that
works.
c Rosetta, 21. December 2009, 21:36

We have a WD 1T external hard drive. Recently when we tried to turn on the computer with the
hard drive attached, the computer would not completly come on but when we unhooked the
hard drive the computer came on just fine. The hard drive would make a spin click sound and
then stop. Is there any way for us to recover our data on the external hard drive?
Ishwar, 21. December 2009, 9:40

hello sir pablo,
Iam Ishwar from Indiai have a transcend 320 gb external gb harddisk which fell down recently
now its making the click soundthe files open in my laptop dell xpsnot in my computerbut they
cant be playediam a college student and had the best of movies and song collection on itnot to
mention the tv series that only i had!!!!..iam very desperate..plz god help!!!!!please.please
Anuja, 14. December 2009, 23:40

hi my tera byte suddenly fall of in this table and now its shows 0bytes its detects show found new

hardware but the file contain shows 0 bytes
Felix, 14. December 2009, 10:42

Thanks Pablo, you are my hero. Im working on recovering 350 GB. Many files irreplaceable.
Thanks for this post, you saved my files.

Hi Karen, I sent you an email with details.
James Foster, 13. December 2009, 7:14

Hi there,
I have a seagate 500gb ext. hardrive, it looks like where the usb cable plugs into the hardrive, it
looks slightly damaged, i was wondering what type of external hardrive enclosure i would need, as
my external hardrive is a little old and needs to be plugged into the mains aswell as my
computer? Thanks James
Karen, 10. December 2009, 20:57

Please let me know how to donate, I want to send you my hard drive
Craig McDonald, 9. December 2009, 13:25

Thanks for the great info I havea WD sec 16 External Hard drive that was corrupted. Read this
article got all my data back. You are a Hero.

Hi Eveyln, I sent you an email, check your junk mail if you did not get it.
Evelyn, 6. December 2009, 1:24

Please contact me about help with a dropped WD external
hard drive. I see that someone just posted the same problem
a few days ago. I would be happy to make a donation for help.
My son just knocked it off of the table and now I get the
clicking noise. Looks like its working but I get the red
exclamation point when I plug it in that says something like
The disk inserted cannot be read.I think thats what it said.
It pulls up the Disk Utility but wont let me Repair OR Verify
it. Im on Mac OSX 10.5, I think. Gosh, I hope some of the images on this drive can be found. Im
so upset right now!!!

Kes:
That is OK, go to the Contact US tab on top of the web-page and send me an email that way and I
will answer you, I do not publish my email address on the website to prevent spam.

Hi Chris:
There are programs out-there that will help you recover data from flash drives I personally do not
have any preference on this. One thing I have to tell you is that these programs will only get you
data out if the problem is partition related, if the problem is hardware related it will be virtually
impossible to get them back.
kes, 4. December 2009, 3:04

hi, i have so many questions to ask, and id rather ask you via personal email if that is okay by
you.
thankyou!!
Chris Carson, 3. December 2009, 10:55

Hello Pablo, I was wondering if you could shed light on this similar problem, but concerning USB
pen drives? Mine is malfunctioning and has very important documents that need to be retrieved.
Any help similar to your above post relating to my problem would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

James, I sent you an email regarding your case.

Lara, try another enclosure, they sell them cheap on the web. Thats the first thing you should
try. You can also send it to me in exchange for a donation to the website.

Pieter I am very glad my article was able to help you. Take care.
James Strand , 3. December 2009, 0:23

I have a broken external hard drive. it fell about a foot and a half onto a hard floor. I am getting
the clickclick. click. response. power button still lights up. it is a Seagate. what is your
advise for externals? I would be more than happy to donate to your site and send it in as the data
onboard is irreplaceable. Thank you for your time
PS: your contact form submit button is broken.
Lara, 1. December 2009, 23:59

i have a I O magic data to go 40gb hard drive. while i was working my external hard drive must
have stopped working for some reason because when i went to go save a document it could not
find the hard drive. when i unplugged the external hard drive and plugged it back in an error
message appeared saying it malfunctioned and windows could not recognize it. is there anything i
can do to fix this?
or anything to do get the documents off the external hard drive?
thank you
Pieter Joanes, 1. December 2009, 4:46

Greetings from Portugal.
Yesterday i was transfering some files from my 500GB HDD to my 1TB HDD when,out of no where
my 500GB goes offline and silent.Must confess,i was starting to get desperate,everytime i tried to
connect it back the freaking thing wasnt being recognized by my computer,made an online search
and found Pablos article.Read the entire thing and figure out that the best solution for my case
was to freeze the bastard.While im typing this answer im transfering my files.
Pablo,you are a rock star.Much appreciated and much love and respect to you all the way from
Portugal.
pam smith, 30. November 2009, 1:19

i have an external hard drive wd500 gb it fell then when i plugged it up it wouldnt come on now
the light is flashing its not making any noise its not showing on comp i have 14000 karaoke songs
on there please tell me i havent lost them can you help me
Robert, 28. November 2009, 13:51

I own 1TB external hard drive thats making the click click sound and it cant connect to my
computers. Is there a way to fix it?
Pablo Garcia, 24. November 2009, 8:38

Hi Rajeev:
I tell you the same thing I tell everybody else. purchase an empty external enclosure and take the
hard drive out of its current enclosure and install it on the new one. and see if the computer
detects it then. The hard drive does not have to be necessarily damaged.
Rajeev, 24. November 2009, 5:59

Hi Pablo,
I own a WD 500GB My passport Essential USB drive and a Dell laptop with Windows Vista (single
drive C: around 300GB). Recently i took all the backup of my system to WD and formatted the
system to install Windows 7. After the successful installation, i did the partition of the C: drive to
4 drives of around 70GB. I plugged in my WD and i was able to view all the backup data. I did a
fullscan of the WD using Avast Antivirus. It was taking a long time and my system went into
sleep/standby mode while the scanning was happening.
When i unplugged my WD and connected again, it was not getting detected in My Computer as a
drive though it shows in device manager that a drive is connected named as WD. I dont hear
any spinning sound of the USB also.
I tried to use GetDataBack but it didnt detect my WD. I enquired a DataRecovery center and they
analysed my WD without opening it and told me that there is physical damage and quoted high
price. Im not sure how they found it to be a physical damage without opening the drive. I have
also reformatted my laptop 1 or 2 times later on and did the partition again and added few data.
Can you please let me know if there is a way to recover data from my WD or from my laptop
without giving the data recovery centres.
Thanks
Daniel Penrice, 18. November 2009, 16:54

Dear Pablo,
I go to plug in my hard drive, and it makes the noise that it makes to signal its connected.
However will than make this noise every half a second or so. Such as its connecting and
disconnecting. But it makes this noise an infinite amount.
I go onto my computer, and it doesnt show that its there, however i go onto safely remove
hardware, and it shows its there, but i go to disconnect it, and i cant.
Whats the matter with the external hard drive. Ive changed the Usb lead, tries a different port,
and computer, and nothing helps.
Thank you very much Pablo.
(if it makes a difference, its a lacie make.

Ormond:
If you are using XP (vista must be similar).. do the following
Click on Start
Settings
Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Disk Management
See if Disk Management sees the drive. However I highly doubt it, since you are not hearing any
noise coming from the drive. Le me know if you see it, and I will tell you what to do next.
Ormond, 17. November 2009, 9:16

Hi Pablo,
My laptop hard drive recently crashed and I am trying to retrieve some files off of it. I purchased
a USB SATA cable and tried connecting the laptop hard drive to another machine via the USB
Cable. The machine does recognize the cable as the Safely remove Icon appears by the Windows

clock but when I go to the My Computer the drive does not appear as an additional drive. Note
that I do not hear the drive spinning nor the clicking noise. Any advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Thanks
Jamey, 15. November 2009, 18:39

I had a Western 320GB external HD that could not be found when plugged in, it just wouldnt
stay there. Windows Explorer showed a drive appear with a ? for a second then disappear. No
weird sounds, certainly not a click, but repeated flashing, the doink USB sound if I plugged and
unplugged it, but never any recognition by Windows that it was really there.
Freaked out a bit then I changed the USB cable out. Came back like a dream.
One more thing to try.
janice price, 13. November 2009, 13:27

my dell laptop wont power up properly I just get a black and white screen that says no bootable
device found I have purchased and fitted a new hard drive but wabt to try and recover some dtat
is this possible please?
Laszlo, 12. November 2009, 16:29

Hi Pablo,
I have a 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 sata drive Firmware: SD15 used in Coolermaster
external enclosure until recently when my Windows XpSp2 stopped detecting it.
After i removed from the enclosure Ive plugged it into motherboard.Windows still not detecting
it! However in bios shown the drive!
Could you hep me plz! The hard drive if nearly full with important document..:(
thanks in advanced!
Winter, 9. November 2009, 11:00

I have a problem can you please help, I purchased a WD Passport Essential 500gb a month ago and
i have all my family pics on it, as well as some music files. I had orignally purchased the drive for
my DVR but had never plugged it into the DVR till yesterday. When i plugged it in a dish network
screen pulled up and said for my to contact tech support with an 800 number. Well upon calling
tech support the man said it had to be set up for dish network and he proceeded to set it up. I
seen a screen pull up and it said reformatting drive in process, well i freaked and pulled the usb
cable out. I told the man i had pics on the harddrive and i dont want to lose them. i told him i
was going to plug it back into my pc and remove the files from it and then i would call him back.
Well when i plugged it back into my computer it doesnt show that there is a j/: drive like it used
to. However when i check the device manager it shows the WD 500BEV Exrenal drive is working
properly. So i looked in disk management and i see disk 1 basic 465.76 GB online 1.01 GB Healthy
(unkown partition) 464.75 Healthy (unkown partition) and the only option i get is to delete the
partition. Please i dont want to lose my pictures and i dont here any noise coming from the
drive. Any help you can give me is really apprecaited!
PANKAJ NAYER, 9. November 2009, 5:06

i put all the data before formating my comp when i revers back to taking data backup at that
moment my data backup haddrive is crased and making noise so pleas help me out iam a hard
ware engineer and i was cheack it out in diffrent comp also . It is Hitachi harddrive Sata and its
serial No is rs2paehm model hdp725025gla380 kindly help out into this matter
thanks
pankaj nayer

You can try opening the enclosure, take the hard drive out if the enclosure, install it on another
enclosure and and see if the machine reads it. they sell empty enclosures on the web, really
cheap too. I sent you an email.
Carla, 4. November 2009, 14:34

Hi there,
Im on a MAC. My Lacie 500 gig external harddrive died and cant be read by my computer. I got
the error message but never the clicky noise of death sound. I plug it in and it flashes but its not
read by my computer. Ive tried switching computer (to my laptop), Ive tried switching cords and
Ive tried switching ports. Nothing!! OMG, all of my work is on there.
What can I do, I have limited funds and Im not a mechanic and cant do this myself. Any
recommendations?
Carla

Hi tiffany:
Do not worry. I sent you an email regarding your case.
tiffany, 28. October 2009, 15:23

oh goodness could you help me please!!!
few weeks ago my Dell desktop computer didnt want to start up.
a blue screen showed when trying to boot up & said hard drive error.
yesterday i brought it into a repair shop & the guy tested the hard drive & told me its dead.
well like what you said, it makes the clicking noise. he told me the ONLY way to get back all
my data on the computer is to send it to a specialist
John Kyakuwa, 24. October 2009, 3:01

Sir the Doctor of the IT generation troubles,
I am john from Uganda. My HDD drive fell down, it was running windows server2003. After a while
it started making noise sound. I set it to slave to another machine and it is not being recognised
by a pc. It keeps on making noise. It was our company server with 3 years old accounts, clients,
and sharepoint database. Please, I am trying finding out how I can solve the problem or who can
help fixing it or getting back my data. But if I can fix it so that I create an image out of it, will
be wonderful.
Sir. Andy possible hope to fix it? Please, instruct me while nursing my wonds.
Thanks I am waiting with anticipation.
Battulga, 23. October 2009, 7:23

My hard drive is not functioning properly. It doesnt open. It spins up and after few seconds it
spins down. What cause this happen and how to recover my data on hard drive? Please anyone
help
Pablo Garcia, 20. October 2009, 8:41

Everybody, I cant post my email address on the website due to spam. However if you wite a
comment with your email address I will respond as quickly as possible.
Fred, 19. October 2009, 8:51

Hi Pablo,
thanks for your helpful service first. Same old story with me really: I just accidentally dropped my
750 Maxtor One Touch while unplugged from the computer and switched off.
I tried plugging it back: the light comes on but it doesnt appear on the hard drive list of the
computer, and keeps doing a blip sound every 5 seconds it seams like is trying to start or
something.
Any chance to bringing it back?
Any chance to recoup the data?
HELP!
Thanks,
Fred
James Cagle, 15. October 2009, 17:31

I have a Seagate 500 gig that rattles. What would it cost to retrieve data
Matt S., 15. October 2009, 3:50

Help me please! I need your help. My Mybook 500gb HDD was knocked from the kitchen counter to
the floor and now when i plug it in it starts to spin up and then just stops. No abnormal sounds
come from it and i took it out of the casing and plugged it into my PC and both ways it will not
recognize the drive at all. This has very important pics of my family on it. Long story short my
laptop which was my home pc crashed and my mybook was my back up source, i bought a desktop
pc and have not had a chance to put all my stuff on the new one before it started acting up. I am
in desperate need of your help, please any info on sending it to you or anything else would be
greatly appreciated.
OC Smith, 11. October 2009, 20:24

Hey. I just saw where you might be starting a recovery business for broken hard drives. I wanted
to send you an email, but couldnt find your email address. Please email me at the address I gave
you so I can donate, getting shipping info. and see if you can get my info off this broken HDD.
Thanx. OC Smith

yusuf, 11. October 2009, 6:02
Am a computer engineer by proffesion i have a cracked hardrive that is not detect and i need to
retrieve the datas in it..i cant even use my data recovery sofeware for it
Helen, 10. October 2009, 0:31

Hello, my Mac hard drive has just died, and Im looking to try to recover data from it. Can you
help?? Email me and I can give you more details. Thanks so much looking forward to receiving
your message.

You definitely can. just take it out of the computer, buy an external enclosure (make sure you buy
the correct one, size and type) hook it up to another computer and start copying your data.

You need to give me more details about your case, I will send you an email.

I seriously doubt that that it is the board. the needle probably crashed on the plates in a critical
area, if the needle is not damaged and the hard drive is still detected by the BIOS there is a good
chance to get your data back.
Dan, 4. October 2009, 4:35

I have a seagate barracuda 7200.10 750 Gbytes Hdd bought last year that i only used it for a few
times. When I start up, BIOS recognizes it, it boots up ( its the HDD that contains the operating
system), but it doesnt finish loading windows and it crashes, sometimes doing a clung. its not
the windows install with the problem as it doesnt crash at the same file(when I try starting
windows in safe mode), sometimes the HDD can go for like 20 seconds, sometimes like 30 before
it crashes.
Can I recover my data? well, at least without voiding the warranty
Kaled , 3. October 2009, 15:32

Hi Pablo!
My computers hard disk got broken and i have very important things in it.
Can you please help me to recover the data from it..
I actually took it to my pc company cause it gots still warranty, and they told me that they
replace a new one to my pc but they cant recover the hard disk. They also told me that i can
take my hard disk to some place where they should be able to recover it((((but itll be very
expencieve around 1000 !!! ))) :/ so if you could help me ill be very happy. //AND SORRY FOR
MY BAD ENGLISH
thnx
ac, 30. September 2009, 13:16

hmm.. ok.. well my hard drive, seagate external, 1 tb nearly full :(
it fell off my desk and when I connect it again it is no longer detected.
It makes a somewhat repetitive sound and then stops after a while.. doesnt sound like scratching
like zzzzhhh zzzzhhhh zzzhhhhh zhhhhh zhhhh and stops after a while. If i plug it back in, it starts
doing that again and then stops.
How can I tell if its the board or possibly the needle?
Brad, 24. September 2009, 10:11

Hey Pablo
Man.youve been asked the same thing over and over since 2007 ;)
I am in South Africa and here data recovery is rather expensive. My HDD spins, clicks, spins, clicks
and then powers down.
Is there any software that can detect this HDD even though its not detected in the BIOS? The
freezer thing is an option but a last resort cos Im afraid I wont get anything off it again. Is there
ANYTHING out there that can be used/done to help with recovery?
Thanks for help. appreciate it.
Pablo Garcia, 24. September 2009, 7:15

Yes, just open the enclosure, take the hard drive out if the enclosure, install it on another
enclosure and that is it! they sell empty enclosures on the web, really cheap too.
Kevin, 23. September 2009, 19:37

I have a 2.5 Toshiba USB 180GB portable HD. I dropped it and ever since it shows up on my
computer but then disappears. I have to hold the USB cable into it at a certain angle for it to
work. Is this easily fixed?
Brian Batayola, 22. September 2009, 23:12

I have an old 40G hard drive which produces a clicking sound.
Could you email me your suggestions, Pablo?
Rene, 16. September 2009, 17:16

I have a 500GB WD Essential Edition. When I plug it in it makes 7 clicks, spins, 3 clicks, spins, a
few more clicks then stops. Under Device Manager it says the unit is working properly but it
doesnt assign it a drive. I did open the case and check the board contacts as your suggestion
above but the contacts are pins.
Androlewicz , 7. September 2009, 23:06
CK I sent you an email regarding your case.
david, 26. August 2009, 2:28

my old computer crashed, i got the error message NTLDR is missing.It would never boot up
again and someone told me it was that my hard drive had blown, i have a different computer now
but want to get the data off my old hard drive if i can, is there any way of doing it? if so how
and what do i need?
musicdan , 25. August 2009, 11:57

hi iv a maxata 500 gig extural hard drive . yesterday it stopped the hard drive is not spinning but
the light is comming on my computer dose not pick up anything when i usb it in iv backed up but
iv just finished recording a song wiv a cliant whos gone back to the usa HELP!!!!
tomas, 21. August 2009, 10:24

Hi,
I have 1TB internal Maxtor drive. about 2 weeks ago it started to work really slow. extracting
100mb rar file sometimes took 15 minutes. after couple days my computer started to freeze
randomly for 5-10 seconds every half a minute or so. I run chkdsk and it didnt find any errors or
bad blocks. I started to burn data on DVDs (and it took forever because reading from the drive
was very slow) but before I finished it got worse. one day my computer shot down itself. after
that every time I tried to turn it on it would start up slowly and then completely freeze after
couple minutes (usually while windows was still loading).
yesterday i bought a new drive. i installed the drive and windows on it. everyting is working
great. now i still need to retrieve some importand data from that broken drive. i connected that
drive as a slave. my computer detects the drive but i cant start windows when its connected.
what happens is i start up the computer, both drives are visible, and then when windows starts
loading it kind of hangs at that point. windows never starts. if i disconnect the broken drive
everything is back to normal. i think the drive gets disconnected (goes dead ?) after it gets
powered (around 1 minute after i start my computer).
ill take a look at the board today. any other ideas ? what else should i try ? connecting it through
usb ?
Tabi, 20. August 2009, 4:43

Hii came across this site while i was searching for a solution for my problemi have purchased a
maxtor one touch III external drive 7 months ago at first it worked fine and i have stored lots of
data in it and didnt use it much only used it when i had to transfer anything to it and then kept
it off but it stayed plugged in with the computerand now few days ago i used it and in for 3-4
times while i was using it when i turned my pc on and then turned the external hd on i did not see
the hd icon in the system tray and the computer did not detect it but when i turned the switch off
and on again few times the icon showed up and then after that this happened again and even
turning the on and off switch didnt show the drive icon and the computer didnt detect it so i
rebooted the pc and after the reboot the icon showed and the drive was detected but yesterday
when i turned it on it didnt detect again and now its not working at all i dont hear any sound
which i used to hear before when the drive used to start running and also the front light used to
flash that is also still now the light does turn on but nothing else happens.please i need help
very badly because i have so much precious data on it and i cant afford to lose it its like losing
a house full of valuable items and then sitting in an empty house if i lose that data.what can i
do to recover the data from the drive?? and is it possible to recover it without taking the drive

out of the enclosure because doing so will void the warranty as its still in warranty.please help
anyway you can.thank you so much.
miri cohn, 18. August 2009, 21:03

HI , browsed thru ur web page and was very impressed. I need ur help desperatly. I have a 250 gb
external hd that got fried, there are irreplaceable pix in there and id love ur help with recovery.
I already gave it to best buy and was told it wud cost me upwards of $2,000 which i definatly
cannot afford. plz let me know if i can send it into u i wud pay up to $250 for recovery. thanx in
advance. plz email me
Good nite,
Peter J. Lewis, 18. August 2009, 10:30

Hi Pablo
I wrote a comment a couple of days ago but it seems to have vanished. Im desperate, my
external Seagate drive has short circuited, I plugged the wrong power cord into it. The drive
doesnt spin despite the circuit board being replaced. I have 170,000 words of my book and all the
research on it together with all my photos and music. It was all backed up with CARBONITE, but I
couldnt afford the renewal and it lapsed. Ive been told the situation is hopeless but youve given
me a glimmer of hope with your recovery service, I cant find an email address for you so I hope
this works. Thanks in anticipation
Pete
Wales (UK)
Kelley, 18. August 2009, 9:06

I have a hard drive that had to be replaced. the only really critical files I have are my tax files
and pictures that I so want to recover. The hard drive crashed and was very unexpected. No noise
no slownessno warning signs whatsoever. It is a western digital 320gb sata hdd. would you be
able to recover any data off of it all? I really could use the help!!
Peter Lewis, 16. August 2009, 11:39

Desperate for help, I plugged my laptop power lead into my Seagate external drive and shorted it
out. Several people have looked at it and the board has been replaced as you suggested but to no
avail. Im told that no data can be recovered as the internal motor has short circuited. Is there
any way that I can recover my files, I have several thousand family photos, all my music and film
collection and the manuscript of a booke Ive been working on for 2 years. I KNOW everything
should have been backed up and I was using web storage with CARBONITE, sadly I was broke when
the renewal came due and never did continue with it YES Ive paid the price but is there any
hope. Thanks for the website, its great, when I win the Lottery Imll make you a BIG donation.
Jason W, 14. August 2009, 13:42

I have a WD 80 gig drive that died on me yesterday. I am getting the clicking noise of death. I
really need to recover the files that are on this drive. Pablo are you still doing the recovery
service? If so please Email me when you can.
Dave Ramsey, 13. August 2009, 13:53
I have a seagate 500 gig external drive. It is usally on all the time. One day the drive stopped
making the normal disk noise and stopped working. When I turn it on the blue light comes on but
no noise and the computer will not reconize the drive.
Help
CER, 4. August 2009, 23:57

I have a Maxtor One Touch III. While traveling, somehow the area where the USB cable connects
into the case became damaged, and I can no longer connect the drive to my computer. Is there
anyway I can get my data out of this drive? I
michael pursel, 2. August 2009, 7:09

Pablo,
I am a Tech and I have seen and fixed many a dead HD, but I have one in my hands that is
actually winning the war atm. It is a maxtor 80GB DiamondMax Plus 9.
I have put it in a external enclosure and it is seen by my puter, however it will only tell me to
format.that has since stopped and now it will only make a beeping sound constantly, it is still
recognized by my puter though. I have not tried the freezer trick ad this is a customers HD. Any
ideas and how much to send to you if the customer is interested?
Thanks you are doing a nice service here, keep up the good work.
MIke
Rodolfo Fernndez, 26. July 2009, 8:09

Thank you very much for your explanations. In my case I was very unlucky because my back up
external hard drive broke when I accidentally dropped it and within a few days my internal hard
drive got damaged. My 125 GB WD My passport EHD sounds like the motor is attempting to run for
a second, stops and repeat the sound intermittently. I checked with an external test connector
and it does the same. Could I send it to you with a reasonable donation? If so, how should I do?
I will appreciate your kind attention.
Stephanorf, 14. July 2009, 12:55

HI Pablo,
Theres some good stuff here. I have a 500gb Seagate 7200.11 (ST3500320AS) that started to go
south on me a few weeks ago. Whenever the PC is booted, the BIOS recognizes the HDD. Also, the
Windows device manager also sees it. Sometimes the FAT sector is read and I can see the file
structure, and even copy some files. But sometimes the drive just shows up as a generic HDD and
I cannot access it at all. I get an I/O error. I flashed the firmware witht he latest revision, but
that didnt change anything. For the past week or so the drive wont do anything except spin up.
There are no sounds from the drive, except a very faint Whir, click, click, click Whir, click,
click, click Whir, click, click, click. I pretty much have to hold the HDD up to my ear to hear it.
Im going to try cleaning the contacts when i get home tonight. If that doesnt work I was going
to try an swap the PCB with another drive of the same model and part number to see if this helps.
What do you think? Does the I/O error give an clues as to where the root of the problem might
be?
Thanks,
Stephen
Eric Ewing, 10. July 2009, 10:59

Hey pablo, just has a question about your data recovery services. My powerbook g4 recently
started to make a knocking sound and I get a smiley icon with a question mark coming up on the
screen. So im guessing im dealing with the click of death which is a total bummer because i do
have some files that i would like to grab for school. Can you do anything to help me out?
I couldnt find your email to contact you directly so hopefully you check this site often.
ro, 7. July 2009, 20:29

hey pablomy hard drive is 400 gb WDand its not making its usually load up soundsand the
light is on but its not loading it sounds like the motor of fan or something in it went outwhat
should i do?
Hawk, 5. July 2009, 5:48

Hello!
I have bought before like 7 months a 2.5 WD Passport Esential 250GB external usb HDD, &
recently it started to do clung clung clung noise of death. I have some very important data
for my work, some movies & music I would like to backup, however, when I plug the drive in,
windows do the sound device plugged but hard drive is not shown anywhere. What would be
your recommendations what to do to ge the data back?

Dont use chkdsk it can actually make things worse. Plug it into an external eclosure and connect
it to the computer. If you cant see the files inside, the filesystem might be corrupted and you
might have to send it to a data recovery company.
Don Johnson, 24. June 2009, 10:03

I have a 60GB Seagate that is no longer working properly. I attempted to use C:\CHKDSK r and it
started to recover the data, but at 43% it stopped and revealed a unrepairable sector or volume. I
would really appreciate any sugguestions. I thought about the Geek Squad, but I see a lot of
negative reviews in the web.
TY

Cody:
Buy an enxternal USB enclosure, and hook it up to your Mac and see if Leopard sees it. If it does
not then your hard drive might have mechanical failure. Is it making any noises?
Cody, 23. June 2009, 12:01

my question is regarding a Mac hardrive. The laptop will not boot. Rather when it tries it gets to
a screen with a folder with a questionmark in teh middle. I took it to the mac store and they

replaced teh hardrive in teh comp and it works fine I do however need teh info off the other
hardrive and i cannot afford to pay 600$ Any ideas? .. please e mail me

CK I sent you an email regarding your case.

Tanai: This might sound weird but it is possible to recover data from a hard drive that does not
get detected by the BIOS, this might very well be your case. Try connecting the hard drive as a
slave or a secondary master and boot the computer with windows and see if it detects it.

Hi Karla: Unfortunately once you hear the clicking noise you have to use either the Freezer trick
or send it to a data recovery company. I would only suggest to use the freezer trick if your data
is not too important and there is not much data to extract. From experience the freezer trick
works only about half of the time, it only lets you recover data for a small amount if time and
usually damages the hard drive even further, so be careful!

Tina: The fact that the Hard Drive gets detected being inside the external box does not mean
much. It could be detecting the USB interface on the box and not the hard drive itself. Once you
hear the clicking noise of death you are pretty much done, the only method to try would be the
freezer trick however, that may damage your hard drive even further and you have too much data
to recover. Your only solution would be to send it to a data recovery service.
Tina, 11. June 2009, 13:14

Dear Pablo,
I have WD 500GB external HD for about two years and it stopped working just about a week ago. I
left my external hd on for downloading when I later came back, the problem started. The light on
the unit was still on. The computer was still able to detect a usb connection but cannot mount
up the hard drive. Then i unplugged the power and USB back into the power outlet and computer
respectively, then I heard the infamous (click click click click roommmmmmmm, click..
click) sound.
CK, 10. June 2009, 13:42

Pablo
Sigh. I bought a new 640g MyBook to transfer my digital music and photo archive to (my MadDog
external device was clearly dying). The transfer never successfully completed repair shop tells
me the mechanical arm isnt moving. So. Id be interested in what services you are thinking of
providing (customer 001?). The tech services arm of the Fortune 100 company I am consulting with
referred me to this website.
What eMail address should I send the details you requested (above) to?
Karla, 5. June 2009, 7:32

hi there, i have a 160gb seagate external hard drive, it was working fine until last night and now
it wont work at all, i have tried it on both my pc and laptop.
The external hard drive lights up as normal, then starts making a clicking noise for about one
minute, then stops, the pc/laptop does not see the external hard drive at all, theres nothing for it
in disk management or device manager. I have a lot of important files on this, is there anything
you can advise me on to get this fixed?
Kind Regards
tanai, 30. May 2009, 18:45

helo i need help with my 200g maxtor hard drive. as i go into bios in the advance bios features,
on the first option Hard disk boot priority it shows my SCSI-0 : Maxtor stm3200820a. But when i
enter the Standard CMOS features on the main BIOS menu, it shows no hard drive being detected
in any IDE channel. i played around with teh jumpers putting in all possbile slots, yet it shows no
sign of detection. i also replaced the IDE cable and switching IDE slots on the motherboard, but
still no sign. i dont think the hard drive is fried or broken as it still runs. ive run an active boot
disk and it reads the hard drive fine, but my bios wont read it therefore i cant install windows on
it.

Vey:
Is the hard drive is not being detected by the BIOS at all? Did you change the jumper to all
possible positions? did you connect it as a slave with the first hard drive being set as (master w/
slave)? (not a single) Did you connect it to the secondary IDE port in the computer as a single
master? If you did all this and the hard drive is still not beng detected by the BIOS there is a
pretty good chance that you have a bad HD Board on your hands. If so, then yes, try removing the
board ans cleaning the contacts with a pencil eraser to see if that helps. If not, then you probably
have to buy the same hard drive with the same board, with the same firmware in order to get it
working again.

Jhonny:
In the big majority of cases data can be recovered without having to open the hard drive, even
when there is physical damage to the plates. We recover data logically, meaning we do not open
hard drives or do anything physical to the hard drive that will make matters worse. The methods
listed in this article can help you but you are taking a risk with some. (like putting the hard drive
in the freezer etc.) We do not put your hard drive at risk. We recover data fixing corrupted mbr,
filesystems, etc.
vey, 29. May 2009, 20:26

hi i have a internal maxtor diamondmax 16 80gb ata/133 hdd and iwhen i plug it into my
computer it doesnt seem to run, spin or antyhing. no movement within the hdd. couple days ago i
was trying to fix my computer due to window update problems and my situation seem to have
escalated from there. due to some problem with window files, my bio then does not detect the
hard drive. so i unplug and plug it back in, number of times, yet still no changes. i also tried o

spin the hdd and i hear the disk spining inside, but im not sure if that would damage it. do you
think if i take out the board and do the pencil cleaning will it fix it? i dont thik it is my
motherboard because i have a 200gig maxtor internal hdd connected and it is detected in the
bios. any suggestions? i would like to try to avoid sending it to the specialist as its not that
important of datas but still worth trying to save since its 4 years of memories.
on another topic:
im also haveing problem with my 200 gig maxtor hdd. it is being detected on my bios, but it does
not detect any hard drive when i tried to run the window xp boot cd (im trying to install
windows). its a 200 gig hdd but i have it partition into 4 sections; thus, creating 4, 40 gig drive.
any ideas?
johnny, 28. May 2009, 18:56

Pablo,
I like your style. Good for you that you can help so many persons with your advice.
for the $199 flat fee will you do anything more than what you have told us about here? Is the fee
refundable if you are unable to get any results? Or some part of the fee for you to determine that
you cannot get anything from it.
Johnny
Cheryl , 28. May 2009, 12:55

Hi,
I have a WD Passport 80 GB external hard drive. It just stopped working today for some reason
and the computer does not see it. The blue light goes on on the external hardrive though. I have a
lot of important information on including my students grades!What can I do? Do you think a data
recovery company can at least recover all my data? What is your opinion?
Cheryl

Cheryl:
From what you describe, it sound like you might not have to open you hard drive at all. The mbr
probably got corrupted and now you cant see the files or the partition. I dont think it is the
casing either since the computer is seeing the drive but is not seeing the partition.
Lee Klein, 28. May 2009, 12:06

I have a Maxtor One Touch 4 500gb that just disappeared off My Computer. The drive letter no
longer shows up. I go to My Computer/Manage and it shows an unknown drive with 0
space/partitions. There is no clicking noise or anything. The light comes on when its plugged in. I
tried it on another computer which does the same thing and cant find it.
I dont have a dust-free room to open it up and I dont know enough to know how to make it a
slave and try again.
The most important content is video and snapshots of my sons baseball games. Is this a situation
where I can buy a like model and have my universitys student repair crew swap it out for me?
Hi Jules, your case looks promising, I sent you an email.
Jules Chan, 16. May 2009, 2:48

Hi Pablo! I am a soldier currently stationed in Afghanistan and on the way here, my hard drive
messed up

Hi Cathy: Since you have an external hard drive, your data might still be accessible. The hard
drive would have to be removed from its enclosure and connected to another computer as a slave
drive or inserted onto another enclosure. I sent you an email.
Cathy Allen , 6. May 2009, 15:12

I have a 20 GB hard drive I took out of a dell laptop to use as an external hard drive. I was
transferring data from my laptop to this hard drive and in the middle of the transfer the 20 GB
hard drive got full. I tried to plug it into another computer to transfer the data off of this drive
but now it wont even recognize the hard drive. I dont even feel it spinning any more. Please
help I just need one folder taken off that has pictures on it a bunch of pictures from when my
kids were babies until now. Please help me get them off.

Sachiko:
If I am not mistaken, the Maxtor one touch III turbo edition is a RAID storage device, which mean
you have more than one drive inside the enclosure (most likely only two). You have to find out if
the drives were setup using RAID 0 or RAID 1, if they were setup using RAID 0, your data will be
rather difficult to recover, since this type of RAID uses both drives and combines the space of
both into one without any redundancy. For example, if you have two 750 drives on a RAID 0 array,
then your total storage capacity will be 1.5TB but if you loose one the array becomes useless. Now
if you had two 1.5TB drives in a RAID 1 array. then the combined capacity will be just 1.5TB with
the drives but the data will be mirrored into one of the drives, which means, if you loose one the
same data will be on the other one. Find out what you have first.

Danielle:
Have you taken the drive out of the enclosure and plug it directly to a PC as a slave drive and see
if it is detected by the BIOS? try that if you can. But be careful not to touch any of the
electronics on the drive when you take it out of the enclosure you can zap the board and make
matters worse. Also if the hard drive is a Laptop hard drive (2.5) then you will need an adapter,
since regular IDE cables have bigger connectors. If you are able to do this and the hard drive gets
detected by the BIOS then the problem might not be with your board. You might not even have a
bad hard drive after all, the problem could also be with the enclosure.
Sachiko Sato, 6. April 2009, 17:06
Hi I have my Maxtore one touch III turbo edition (1.5 Tb) it suddenly decided to be quite today.
while I have 4 of those, it never happend to me for a year. I transferred a lot of data (more than
1 Tb transfer) for 6 hr. So like you said that this procedure might burn the circuit board. I have
one new unused same Maxtor with me which cost me $400. I am now thinking if I should open
those two and transfer the broken one to new one so that I can recover the data out of it I
contacted to a company and tell me that it would cost at least 2000$ .. if that expensive, then I
can spare $400 for this or could you please help me out??
Danielle Homer, 4. April 2009, 20:11

Hi Pablo,
I have a 500g western digital external HD that Ive had for a few years. Now, for some reason,
when I plug it in, I hear a beeping sound (not a clunking or grinding sound) three our four times.
None of my pcs are able to detect it.
Do you think I should put it in the freezer or is it even the heads that are stuck? Im not sure
what it could be. Ive been searching all over the web and even watched a YouTube video on how
to remove the HD from the case to check if the powersupply was dying instead.
Please help.

Due to the popularity of this subject I have decided to start a new data recovery service in
exchange for preset donation to the website. I am currently working on the details, in the mean
time if you have a hard hard drive you would like data extracted out of, please send me an email
describing the problem in detail and I would let you know the steps you need to follow to ship the
hard drive to us. The service would be provided at a $199 flat fee. Probably the most affordable
on the web.
Stella, 31. March 2009, 7:21

My computer cant boot and I had sent it to the technician and he said that my main drive dead. I
dont really understand what does that mean. Can I recover all my important documents in it?
Daren Rochard, 29. March 2009, 4:07

I have a maxtor basic external hard drive that is not detected by windows. It makes sort bursts of
noise like a stuck record.I have all of my family photos on this drive and really need to recover
the data. The hard drive is only 2 months old and i did look on there forums about broken drives
and they would just replace it and i would lose all my data.. not good..So if theres any tips i
would be most grateful.
Reguards Daren
Besim, Kosovo, 17. March 2009, 15:48

Hard drive does not get detected,
I opened my pc pull out my hard drive and placed to other pc, then suddenly
I saw a smoke from my hard drive, I stopped by pulling out electric cable, than started again I
saw small red light, and then for a short time hard drive was not detected, I ask around, most of
people said that if I found same hard drive changing some stuffs I can pull the data from my hard
drive, I need the data that I have in hard drive, but not spending much money, I am not rich

my hard drive is 120 GB- Maxtor I found one with 160 GB -Maxtor, so what else should I check to
be sure before I opened, cause I heard that if I open my hard drive in open space (air) my data
will be lost, so please can someone told me that
Is it save to open it and if is save to open what else should I check, in hard drive,
Thank you had a time to ready it,
SHIRLEY SSHEASBY, 9. March 2009, 10:42

Dear sir
I have a 250gb Freecom Hard Drive. It has stopped working, and doesnt show in My Computer, so I
am unable to open it up, I have a lot of Movies, photos, and Music.
Is there a way to solve this problem.
Can you let me have a reply stating charges etc
Mrs S M Sheasby
Alithia, 2. March 2009, 4:51

Hi All,
I was wondering what happens to the harddrive after you let in heat up again. I have the same
situation as case 2 and have been told that its going to cost between $1000-$4000 to recover my
WD hardrive. I am wanting any help I can because that is too much and has to be my last resort!
Has anyone tried to place their hard drive in the freezer like it says?
Don, 24. February 2009, 0:47

Hi Pablo,
I have a WD 500G SATA external hard drive. I try to open a file from it but when I turn it on, its
just not showing in my drive list. I tried to unplug then plug it again but I only hear short
movement on the hard drive then no more. I removed the the drive from the enclosure and I smell
a burned board. I bought a new enclosure but still no luck at all. If youre going to suggest to
replace the board on the buttom of the drive, can please give me detailed procedure, because as
youve said I cant open the hard drive itself. Please help me so I can retrieve my important
pictures of my baby. Thank you so much in advance.
Konrad, 6. February 2009, 11:13

i have a drive with broken electronics, and want to buy a drive of the same model but there are a
lot of numbers written on the disk besides the model-number.
An important one seems to be the one named P/N, because it is mostly provided in the ebaydescripions of the drives, but there are also numbers labeled as OEM, MLC and FR each of them
different.
Do you know what those numbers mean and which of them should be the same on the replacement
drive?
Mark, 30. January 2009, 20:38

Gillware quoted me 800$ not real affordable still looking for another option.
Luca, 29. December 2008, 22:01

i dont know the problem, but mine, the light goes on and off, i dont know what it is the click of
death but with a light instead of the noise, well it makes no noise, and my pc doesnt recognize it.
Tom, 9. December 2008, 2:45

i neeed help!
i cant quite diagnose my problem.
i get certain errors that say there is something wrong with my hard drive and memory.
i cant log into windows and i sumtimes get a strange noise.
ill be asking around a lot of forums in the next couple of days, but starting here id like to know if
i can Do it myself or if i need a third party to do it for me..
George, 4. December 2008, 16:13

HI!
Because of a bad power source ive managed to burn 2 hard drives. None of them are spinning
when i power up the computer.Now im trying to recover my data. One of the hard drive is WD 80
GB: WD800JB-00JJA0. Ive bought the model WD800JB-00JJC0 and switch the electronic board. As
u can see there is a small difference between model. After making the board switch, the sick hard
started to spin and had been recognized in BIOS as some WD hard drive, but it doesnt know the
exact model. I get some warning before boot that one of my hard drive is not correctly recognized
and Windows XP is getting stuck because of that. Any chances to recover my files if i found the
exact model WD800JB-00JJA0 and use that electronic board?

I would take one of the Hard Drives out of the computer and connect it to a second computer as a
slave or using an external enclosure, that way you can prove that the hard drives are in good
condition. If they are then you probably have a bad motherboard on your hands.
CluelessCarl, 20. October 2008, 12:40

Hi everyone, I think i might have a major problem with my PCthe other day my computer
suddenly died. After talking to a couple of people i changed my graphics card and this helped to
the point that I can now watch the thing on screen NOT booting. I have also noticed that my 2
hard drives are clicking, and after a while waiting to boot, they slow down and stop. I looked in
the BIOS and there are no hard drives listed. I tried to use vista to repair and even re-install, but
it does not see the driveswhat can i do

Brian: I would take it out of the case its currently on and try it on a different case, they sell
them for about $25 anywere on the web. If you are going to buy an external enclosure make sure
is is the right size and type. They have them for laptop hard drives and for regular hard drives
(2.5? and 3.5? respectively) Also you need to find out if your drive is IDE or SATA.
Brian, 16. October 2008, 11:37
Do you have any information on how to recover portable hard drive data?
Ive got a Seagate external hard drive thats about 5 years old and my computer no longer shows
the drive.
thanks for any info
Brian

Depends on the store and how knowledgeable the person that sees the hard drive is. If you buy a
used hard drive on ebay and swap the boards and that happned not to be the problem, you can
always sell it back and your loss will be minimal.
Frank, 15. August 2008, 12:40

Is there any way they can tell me at the computer store that the board is in fact defective. Like
with a currency test? I dont want to waste $50 you know.

Yes that what it sounds like.
Frank, 15. August 2008, 12:21

I have an external WD 250GB that all of a sudden stop working. The only thing that happens now
is the light comes on. There is no recognition from my computer even after I took it out of its
case and put it in my tower. Please help. Could it be the board?
Jamahl B., 7. August 2008, 18:25

I changed the external device and pluged it in via usb but I still do not get the drive to come up
in my computer menu. I still do not have a click in the drive or a noise of any kind it seems to be
running fine but still the external dive do not show up. Can u help me please and thank you in
advance.

Jamahl B: I would take it out of the case its currently on and try it on a different case, they sell
them for about $25 anywere on the web. If you are going to buy an external enclosure make sure
is is the right size and type. They have them for laptop hard drives and for regular hard drives
(2.5 and 3.5 respectively) Also you need to find out if your drive is IDE or SATA.
Jamahl B., 6. August 2008, 3:10

I have an external HD that I have had for about two years. I dont know the model of the drive I

just know it is a HD in an external case. I use the music to put my music files on that I record
from the Cubase program. I turn on the HD an it freezes my computer. I also plug it to another
computer that is brand new and it reads as new hardware but also freezes the new computer. It
does not show in my computer. Please help me or let me know what to do thank you in advance.

No I do not have a list, but you should be able to look it up in google with no problems. However
sometimes is cheaper to buy another used hard drive and swap the boards. Look for them on
eBay. Before you do that though, I would unscrew the board and clean the contacts on the bottom
with a pencil eraser, they might be dirty. Good Luck!
newckiwi, 29. July 2008, 7:39

You mentioned that there are companies that will sell you a replacement pcb for a hard drive, do
you have a list of the people? My drive is now undetectable by the bios, so I would like to try the
replacement board option. Hitachi, (my drive) say that these are not user servicable parts and as
such will not entertain selling me a replacement board. Any information would be a great help.

Gary:
What I would do in your case is run a full checkdisk on your drive, since you might be developing
bad sectors, after that copy all of the contents ASAP (if it lets you) to another drive and run
Recover My Files on the drive to see if you can recover what you lost. Notice that I said ScanDisk
and not Defrag! do not run defrag if you want the little data that you have left.
Gary, 24. July 2008, 7:11

I have a WD mybook Premium ES. I have been having problems with it and i am now at the point
where my OS sees the drive, i can browse its contents , but cant open or copy any files..any
ideas ?.also some of the folders are showing as being empty..there was files in these
folders before problems arose..is there still a chance these can be recovered ?
nothing has been deleted by me on this drive !
p.s. I certainly wont be buying WD mybook again !!
hope someone can help.a 5 year photography project is slowly heading down the toilet !!

Wow another Western Digital, the big mayority of people commenting on this article are having
problems with Wester Digitals. Anyway. I think your problen calls for the Freezer Trick read it
on my article. Remember As a word of advise, I would recommend that you send it to a Data
Recovery specialist first if you really care about your data. The freezer trick is does not work all
the time maybe 50% of the time, and after doing it your hard drive might not work ever again.
Dan, 15. July 2008, 15:27

I have a western digital 250gb hard drive and its worked fine for nearly 4 years until a few days
ago. IT will turn on and I can access the files on it for about 2 minutes before its starts making a

squeaking noise and none of the files will open.

If the drive is damaged as a result of physical damage, then there is nothing that you can do on
your own. You need to send it to a data recovery specialist. My article covers data recovery O-NL-Y if the hard drive fails by itself.
Robby, 14. July 2008, 8:47

I have an external hardrive that I have dropped a couple of times. Windows can detect it but it
says that it is not accessable because there is an I\O device error.
I also have another external harddrive that is the exact same model. I have taken both of the
hard drives out of the cases and switched them. But this does not work.
This is what I hear: click-click-clickclick-click-clickerr-err, and it keeps on repeating.
What should I do?
Pablo, 13. July 2008, 15:12

HI Chuck, I personally have had very bad experiences with My Books, we bought 3 at work. of
which 2 did not work right out of the box, and one broke with very little use. That being said let
me address you problem, there seems to be common confusion with people not knowing how to
differentiate and external from and internal drive just look at the pictures, on my article, I
barely talk about external drives! Troubleshooting an external drive is the easiest thing on the
world! just purchase an empty external enclosure ($25 at new egg, make sure is the right size for
your drive and if it is PATA or SATA) take the actual Hard Drive out of the my book enclosure, put
it inside the new case and connect it to your computer. When I talk about the board I talk
about the one that is part of the actual drive, and not the enclosure that contains it (if it is
external like yours). Internal and external drives are the same. An external drive is just a normal
computer hard drive inside an enclosure, thats all.
chuck vallejos, 10. July 2008, 16:21

Hi Pablo, i have the 80gb my book. do you have any suggestions about this. when i plug in the
power for my book, the light just flashes, no sign of power except for the flashing light. i believe
its the little power board that is bad. im desperate.
Pablo, 10. July 2008, 13:18

Carl from what you are describing it seems that your hard drive has physical damage as a result of
the fall. There is nothing you can do on you own, the solutions I describe on this website pertain
to everything you can do if the hard drive fails on its own, and not as a result of physical damage.
You need to send it to a data recovery specialist.
carl martin, 9. July 2008, 2:34

hi i dropped my maxtor one touch 4 it now dosent connect to my laptop and it makes a beeping
sound the light comes on at the front and makes a clikin sound help lol
Pablo, 16. June 2008, 12:46

Trish: If you are sure the hard drive got damaged after the fall, chances are that you are going to
need a data recovery service. Have you to listened to it, does it sound like a normal hard drive
when you conect it? or does it make weird repetitive sounds? like clunk clunk clunk, like if
something was stuck? If it does then you are out of luck, you need to send it. There is a few
things you can try before sending it. I would take the hard drive out of its enclosure, and connect
it as a slave drive directly to the computer, if you do not know how to do this then you have the
alternative of buying another enclosure, they sell generic ones on the web, that do not require
drivers, you can go to newegg for example. They are cheap you can get one for arroung $25
Trish , 12. June 2008, 16:08

Hi Pablo,
I hope you might be able to give me a suggestion on my daughters external WD MY Book 160, the
drive is not being recoginized by any computer. We have run all the diagonostics and it has
passed. You can see and hear that the drive is spinning. But what ever we have done we cant get
it recoginized. Her boyfriend and I took it out of the case and installed it in my desktop as a slave
to see if we could at least recovery the info on it, but it didnt correctly recognize the hard drive,
it thought it was a dvd drive. Unable to get the correct drivers from WD because it is out of
warranty. We are not sure why it stopped working, it may have been dropped at her dorm during
a party. Any suggestions you could give us would be great she have very valuable data stored
there i.e. final projects etc.After we took it apart we put it back together and still no go we have
already invested hours toward this, so a fresh set of eyes so to speak would be welcome.

Luis, Have you tried using another enclosure? have you tried plugging the hard drive directly to
the computer as a slave drive?
Luis, 18. May 2008, 14:21

Hey Pablo, its Luis again, thanks for getting back to me before, i have done what you said i
should cleaned the contacts, but it still has not come back to live. So i believe its prob the click
of death, the sound that i hear. My hard drive is an external hard drive, and when i plug it into
the computer, the computer detects it, it makes the sound that its been plugged in, however, i
cannot access my data. When i go to device manager, it says that one of the drivers is cannot be
loaded, i tried unstalling and re-installing this driver, but everytime i do it fails. If i had the click
of death would the computer still recognize the hard drive? I just dont know what else to do,
thanks again for your help earlier and the pictures of the contacts, i was hoping that would have
done the trick but it seems not

Look on eBay, you can either buy the board of buy the same hard drive, sometimes is cheaper to
buy a used hard drive and use it for parts. I discussed all of this in my article.
albert, 2. May 2008, 1:20

i can not put it into an encloseure that wont do anything because the board is still fried and i

need power to make it spin up.have any idea where i can get an extra board for it???

You just answered your question, if the board is fried the logical thing to do is change the board
If its an external drive, then just put it into another enclosure before changing the board on it.
albert, 30. April 2008, 21:29

i have a 250gb wd and somehow got shorted out and started smoking so i pulled the HD out of its
encloser and opened it up and the board is fried.i was told there is a way to still get everything
off of the hard drive..SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME OUT I HAVE VERY IMPORTANT STUFF ON IT..I
need your help

Luis: Im my article I talk about Remove the main board from the bottom of the hard drive and
clean the bottom contacts That board can be removed without opening the hard drive. I also said
in my article Hard drives need to be opened in dust free environments, and by specialized
personnel, so do not even attempt to open it if you want your data back!!!. If you opened the
hard drive it might be too late. you have to remove the bottom board not open the hard drive. If
you mean that you have an external Hard Drive and you opened the case, then thats a different
story. If the computer is not detecting the external hard drive, I would suggest to replace the
enclosure, they sell empty ones for about $25, if that does not work then Take the hard drive
out of the case, remove the board on the bottom of the hard drive, you will see that this board is
sitting on top of contacts, clean those contacts with an eraser. I posted some pictures for you.
Luis, 22. April 2008, 18:30

hey, i have a 500gb freecom hard drive, and up until last week it worked fine. suddenly it has
stopped working, the computer recognizes it has been plugged in but it doesnt appear in my
computer. it also makes a noise like it is trying to load the data, but it doesnt sound like a click. i
think i have problem number 4 on your list. i have opened the hard drive, to ty to clean it with
the rubber, however, i cannot find the contacts that you mention. i dont want to try to clean
anything else, cos i migt actually break he hard drive for good, so ny help you can provide would
be much appretiated. if you have any links to a picture that shows what the contacts look like
then tht wuld be brilliant. i just dont want to lose 500 gb worth of data, and i cannot afford to
send it to a specialist.

Deepak the only way I can help you is by giving you advice. What I would do in your case is take
the hard drive out of the case and connect it directly to the computer or purchase an empty HD
enclosure, (they sell them for around $25) that way you can find out if the problem is with the
enclosure or the hard drive. If that does not work, then you could have a bad logic board on the
hard drive. You could buy another HD just like that one on eBay and swap the boards.
deepak baldi, 12. April 2008, 15:51

I have a 160 GB Western digital portable external drive. For some spontaneous reason, when i am

plugging the device into the USB port, it does not Autorun and the drive letter do not appear in
Explorer nor in Disk Management. Though when connected to computer it recognises the device as
an external USB device but doesnt show any drive letter. I even tried using the Western Digital
diagnostic utility but it gives me an error Cable Test: Read diagnostics sector error. Please let
me know if you could help me in getting my data which was stored on that external hard dive.
G33K GiRL, 20. March 2008, 10:07

Ok thanks alot , much appreciated.

He used is A+ Computer Data Recovery Services http://www.cmpq.com/ I have never used one
of these services before so I am not endorsing them or anything. Just do your research.
G33K GiRL, 19. March 2008, 15:47

Hi Pablo,
Thanks alot for ur reply I really really appreciate it,can you please tell me the specialist address
to send my HD to?
thanks again God bless u.
g33ki.girl@gmail.com

Dont worry your data is probably all there, it just cant be retrieved at the moment. I doubt that
the Freezer trick would work for you since your hard drive got damaged during the fall, and this
trick only works when the hard drive starts failing on its own. You probably are going to have to
send it to a data recovery specialist. Hopefully the arm is not scratching the surface of the plate,
but do not connect it anymore just in case. I was talking to a guy at work that had the same
thing happen to him and he sent his to a recovery specialist in Colorado that charged a flat fee, I
think he told me from $200 to $500 depending on the type of damage, so they are not extremely
expensive. He got absolutely everything back; they sent all his files by mail on several CDs.
G33K GiRL, 19. March 2008, 6:59

Hi Pablo,
First thanks alot for the excellent article believe it or not its the first article I read and gives me
some hope!
Please have some patience to read my tragedy :(
..two days ago my beloved external HD stopped working (100 GB storage) I cant tell u how it
means to me all my projects,stuff,artworks,articles,SW,drivers eeeeeeeeverything is in there its
simply MY DIGITAL IDENTITY! dont tell me I had to have a backup because that what I was
thinking of doing the same week as it started the click click thing but it was still working fine
until it fell from me on ground and..stopped working completely :(
the case is that whenever I connect it to any computer first you can feel it moving inside then it
makes clicks and keeps moving inside until it stops completely and the computer doesnt detect it
at all.
Pleeeeeeease help me its a case of life or death for me :(

Make sure you have the jumpers set correctly first. If not, try to detach the circuit board and
cleaning the contacts with an eraser, if that does not work try replacing the board. And if none of
this works consider sending it for repair to a data recovery specialist.
Nehe, 12. March 2008, 16:27

Hi!
I just moved and my 200gb external hd stoped work. It starts up as usual and it appears on the
computer but it says that it got 0bytes used space and 0bytes free space. Iv tryed to run the
Recover My Files program but it seems it wont search a drive with nothing in it. Any suggestions?

For the last two questions Freezing can only be done once; usually after this the hard drive dies
forever. However, freezing works only about 60% of the time and usually on dives which started
malfunctioning by themselves. I do not think it will work on your particular case. I would send it
to a data recovery service if the data is too important. If not, freezing is probably your last
option, but remember if it does not work you can do more damage than good.
Raelynae, 3. March 2008, 20:24

Question about the click click click of death solution. My WD 500GB MyBook Essential 2.0 fell 2
feet off my endtable today and is now making that tell tale noise. How many times can freezing
the unit be done? My external drive is currently doing that, and in doing so I lost upwards of
100GB. I dont think that transfering the files would work only one time as transferring that many
files takes longer than it to thaw out. Any help would be nice thanks!
jonathan M C, 3. March 2008, 15:22

Good Evening,
I managed to pull my 240GB hard drive off the coffee table last night and am now getting (as you
refer) the clunking noise of death!!
I have about 50-60GB of music on the drive and dont think I can try the freezer trick as it will
take time to copy this much music over.
Any solutions for me??
Thanks
Jonathan

Kenon: It looks to me that you filesystem may have gotten corrupted, or that the Hard Drive itself
went bad, Windows is seeing it but it cannot understand whats written on it. do you hear any
strange sounds comming from it? Also plug it into another computer and see what happens, if
youstill do not see a drive letter take it out of the casing and connect it directly to the computer
as a slave, then get and run Recover My Files that little program is awesome.
Kenon Burns, 23. February 2008, 2:05

I own a WD 500GB MyBook Essential 2.0 USB that I use with my own HP laptop with Windows Vista
Home Premium. I disconnected it from my laptop and did not use it for 3 or 4 days. When I
plugged it back into my laptop, the button lights up like it should, and the Safely Remove
Hardware icon pops up, but there is no drive letter assigined to it. In My Computer it does not
show up either. When I right-click on My Computer and go to Manage, it shows up as Disk 2,
Unknown, Unreadable with a little red arrow pointing down. What is it that may be wrong and
what should I do about it?
Kenon Burns

CHETU: I do not suggest you change the arm by yourself. Hard Drives are sealed so that no dust
particles get inside. Any tiny particle can damage it and that is why Data Recovery experts work in
special dust-free environments. Send it to a data recovery service.
chetu, 14. December 2007, 18:12

I have one samsung 40gb hdd from that i hear a noise of clung clung clung and i have
another HDD of the same make and same model and i want to swap the arm from the good
harddisk to the bad one,
how can i change the arm can u send me the tecniq so i recover my data
pamela, 5. December 2007, 22:22

Im not a computer savy person, when my computer crashed I sent in my drive to Gillware. They
were affordable and had my recovered data back to me in a week.
Data Recovery Service
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How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive

18. May 2007, 3:09 Uhr

If you are reading this article you are probably desperate,

Data backup and recovery

Data Center Aligns IT Resources To

data can be recovered without having to send the hard

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read my article: How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software.

Clicking noise of death

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