external hard drive problems

[sdtripper2]

Kartvines:

It appears that you really don't want to loose your data on that drive with the
expanding effort to get the apparently dead drive going? Why not make a few
phone calls to computer stores in your area and ask them the cost of data
recovery options? Don't cost anything to ask and you might find a pleasant
surprise if you get your data back. Sometimes a C-note is worth getting your
data back.

That said:
If your drive has any life left?
You might consider the program Spinrite6?
This program has a good rep and maybe of use in getting your data back.
Read the testimonials and the facts on this product to get the flavor of what
it might do for you.
http://www.grc.com/sr/testimonials.htm

[SaGR]

If it's clicking the arm drive is toast.

Here's an industry old trick -

Stick it in a plastic bag, squeeze out as much air as possible and seal the bag. Stick it in the freezer for a few hours.

If it works after that - get your data off as quickly as possible.

Return if under warranty.



Data recovery starts at about $500 and goes all the way to several thousand dollars depending on what they have to do to get the data.


Edit: Didn't see Denny's post the first time through

[Dave Bob]

I found this article 200 ways to revive a hard drive.

Dave

[khutson]

How about removing the HD from the encloser and connecting to it via your PC. I have seen the actual enclosers go sour.

I have two enclosers in the closet for just that reason but the HD's are still good.

Just another option.

Ken

[SaGR]

when I turned it back on, it would not work, the light comes on, and I can hear clinking inside but nothing works.

Think clicking indicates a physical problem with the drive, odds are if you look in the USB panel the electronics component will be visible but it will not see the physical disk in the housing.

Try the freezer trick, if that doesn't work you're only real option is data recovery.

[steve wolverton]

I found this article 200 ways to revive a hard drive.

Dave

Cool PDF. I saved that one.

[kartvines]

Thanks for all of the ideas, I have it in the freezer now for the 1/2 hour and if that does not work I will try the overnight freeze, No reason to pay to have it recovererd, it is only my music collections approx 2500 songs, and my photos and some work data. It took me years to collect the songs, but I can start that over again. It is just a damn crime that you pay for a name product just to have it crash, I can take the driver out of the case, being it is not longer under warranty, but I never thought you could put them in a computer slut and get them to work, but right now anything I can try I will because overall it is broke now, and I don't think it can get any worst.

Now if I go out to buy another drive, I thought Maxtor was a good brand, but I expect more than a year of service for that kind of money any recommendation for drive, I am not rich [in fact I am teardrop building poor] so the top of the line brand are out of my buying categories. I paid just over $269.00 for this one, they are now on sale for half that amount.

[sdtripper2]

kartvines:

You Must expect that your drives will all come to dust in their own time.
Your challenge is to have your data baked uP for the back uP. That is
having data saved in a few places with redundancy and periaortic or
automatic duplication of new data so as to have peace of mind knowing
that all hardware and especially drives will give out on you.

Won't even go into off site data storage, but depending on a brand name
drive maker to be your bulwark against failure isn't the answer.

I have such tools as a RAID 1 that creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a
set of data on two system disks in my computer. I then have an external
drive as you do and now have 8 gig thumb drives to keep my most
sensitive data with "Folder Lock" with encryption for added security. Storing
those thumb drives away from the main computer.

Working in Computer service for 23 years for Hewlett Packard one event
was always inevitable. Drives will always die and data will be gone unless
the customer makes conscious plans for the inevitable. Two or more
backuPs is most likely sufficient. Stolen computers and fire brings in a
whole new set of circumstances. I never got used to feeling the pain and
gnashing of teeth of a customer that lost years of work because he
depended on one mechanical drive in a blind in one eye and couldn't see
out of the other attitude about backuPs.

[SSchumacherCO]

Seagate bought Maxtor a little over a year ago, you will want to deal with them. As I recall drives with a Maxtor name have a 3 year warrenty while Seagate brand drives have a 5 year warrenty.

Here is a link for getting a replacement.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance/

Here is a trouble shooting link that might help.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=External_Hard_Drive_Troubleshooter&vgnextoid=5d824a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

I design hard drive test equipment for a living and from what you described it sounds like your dirve is not spinning up and coming ready. Doesn't sound good. But as others have mentioned sometimes they come back to life.

But be careful, on the other hand it may already be too late. Extream cold may cause the heads to stick to the disk. While extream heat may cause some electrical components to fail. What ever you try, don't do anything to void the warrenty if you want to get a replacement.

As far as data recovery goes, if it is a circuit board failure a new board will get you back up and running. A disk/head failure is much more messy and much more expensive.

Good luck.[/url]

[Ira]

Think clicking indicates a physical problem with the drive, odds are if you look in the USB panel the electronics component will be visible but it will not see the physical disk in the housing.

Try the freezer trick, if that doesn't work you're only real option is data recovery.

Mine clicked too but it still eventually mounted.

[Ira]

Well, last night, I joined the club:

My internal at home wouldn't boot up, so I had to boot off an external. It would start to boot, then just shut itself off--like turning the POWER off of the whole computer.

I ran Disk Utility (Mac), it saw that internal Maxtor, but the "Rat" partition listed under it (the name I gave the drive) was greyed out. So I clicked on that, the utility ran, and then it errored out.

I don't have any files on there that I really care about losing--except for my Entourage User Data with all of my email addresses! Plus, all of the bookmarks for my favorite dirty sites. (A pain to reinstall programs, but I can live with that.)

I'm gonna try TechTool tonight, and if a miracle happens and it works, I'll retrieve my mail data and bookmarks and do a clean install/erase on the drive anyway.

[kartvines]

Well I froze it for a half of hour, nothing booted, I will try to freeze it overnight on Friday, and if it does not boot, I will try remounting it in an old computer after removing from the case, I checked to see if it was still under warranty, but according to their website it is not, so I already open the box. It is a true pain when after spending that much money and thinking that it is a name brand, and being it was just about a year old, I never thought it would fail. It was my back up drive and the drive I stored all of my music and videos, so that my tower hard drive would not be over loaded. I guess you can never win.

[Boodro]

All makes of harddrives die!!!
We have used Maxtor, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Quantam, etc. Sooner or later they all have issues. Some more than others .

I thought someone here said that Macs never have problems???????

Good luck.

[Ira]

I thought someone here said that Macs never have problems???????

Good luck.

The Mac is fine--it's the stupid internal Maxtor drive that came with it.

I got a beat on to how to fix mine and I know I'll get it to mount when I have the time this weekend.

My Disk Utility verified the drive, which means it's okay. So it's some file in the Directory which is corrupt and keeping it from mounting.

[SaGR]

We build massive off-the-shelf (commodity class - meaning repair parts are easily found since there's no proprietary hardware) storage servers (up to 14Tb space) and originally used Maxtor drives. We experienced a 17% failure rate with Maxtor and switched to Seagate or Western Digital (depending on which configuration the client ordered).

With Seagate we have less than 4% failure and with WD less than 2%.

The MTBF rate on Maxtor was way over inflated.

.