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brain dead external hard drive!!

17 years ago

Is there any hope for a hard drive that will click about 3 times and then spin down? It started to click, so I hurriedly started backing up some files that I hadn't already backed up and before I could get them all backed up, it quite showing up in windows explorer. I did get it to show one time. I could see folders but when I opened them, they were empty.

Western Digital. I think it's called "my book"?

TIA,

Jean

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Comments (7)

bpgreen
17 years ago
You might try Spinrite. I've been able to recover data from otherwise dead drives with it. It's $89.
owbist
17 years ago
If you can get the drive to run try this
click Start
click My computer
right click on the drive in question
click Properties
click the Tools tab
click Check now to run chkdsk

If that finds nothing and you can determine the model of the hard drive then download the diagnostics from the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Western Digital diagnostics
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jean_mi_z5
Original Author
17 years ago
Keep the faith baby...I was ready to toss this thing this morning and thought I would try one more time...LO AND BEHOLD, THE DARN THING WORKED and I was able to backup all my files..WHO'D A THUNK?

Jean
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
17 years ago
often once it cools down completely it will start again, in fact putting one in a zip lock bag and in the freezer overnight will often allow you to quickly get your info off of a dieing drive, some people use dry ice to really chill them quickly. Keeping the dry ice in a zip lock also and on the hard drive while it is hooked up (but not in the tower) can make it operate a bit longer than just putting it in the freezer.
the freezing it makes the metals contract enough that they go back in to their proper place and work till it heats back up then it quits again.

Here is a link that might be useful: freezing a hard drive to recover data
owbist
17 years ago
I don't think external drives are designed to run all the time. Mine is hooked up only when I need to tranfer data on or off the drive even though my case also has a small fan in it for air movement.

Glad you got it going again though
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
17 years ago
same here mine do not stay on and I do not use their file backup software which backs up as you go
Pooh Bear
17 years ago
I'm seriously thinking of attaching a heat sink to my internal drives.

A couple of weeks back, I lost one main drive and it corrupted
a slave drive. I used GetDataBack to retrieve most of my data.
Had to mount the drives externally and sit here with a fan
blowing on them to keep them cool. I think a heat sink would be good.

I bought a 1 terabyte external drive to back everything up on.
And I only plug it in when it is being used.

Pooh Bear

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