Very Urgent - HDD is Unaccessable and Clicking

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r-486

Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2006
Messages
556
Just got home and this is happening. Need to do something now before it's too late. :eek:
 
My event log

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Apparently it happened about 6-7 hours ago, Eastern Time Zone.
 
Stop using it.

If the data is very important, go for a professional data recovery service.

If you want to try recovery on your own:

1. Clone the drive using DD or some other program. Or if you can get at individual files, then copy whatever files you want.

2. If you are unable to even detect the drive, try the freezing method. Note that this will only work once. After you try this, don't expect for anything else to work again.
 
r-486 said:
Just got home and this is happening. Need to do something now before it's too late. :eek:
Click to expand...
You cant just get the files from your backup? :p

+1 for the above and also make backups on another HD, dvd, bluray, etc.
 
Going to Disk Management made my PC freeze. I shut it down and disconnected the faulty HDD from PSU and motherboard. Put it in the freezer? How long? I'm a bit wary about putting it in the freezer. I can't afford recovery service. I'll have to do it myself. Yes, the data is very important. About 200GB worth of crucial files.
 
Disk manager is not a recovery program, try a real recovery program. In the future back that shit up to a second drive, if you use a laptop use an external. Not a second partition.
 
It's a desktop. The HDD has one partition on it, no installed programs, just data/files. It's an old WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS bought like eight years ago or so.

I read it should be frozen for at least 12 hours. Would more be better? I could do 24 hours since I have work in the morning. I've read freezing can be bad. I'm still suspicious about doing that...
 
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My only input to this thread is the still ongoing facepalm which started when I read this..

r-486 said:
[.. ]It's an old WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS bought like eight years ago or so.
Click to expand...

But to be of some help, I've used EASUS recovery software in the past with good results. I've also used the freeze method many times with very good results, sometimes I even had to recover the files with the HDD still in a small portable freezer. Use a high quality ziplock bag, but the HDD in it, then but that bag in another ziplock bag. This is highly recommended. Leave it in the freezer for about 12 hours, take it out, reconnect and start recovering data, if it spins up. At some point it will fail again, and you will have to freeze it again, and start from where it left off - so make sure your recovery software is capable of starting again from the last place failed.

By freezing the disk you're shrinking the platters enough that they're no lunger rubbing against the head, or that's the theory at least.

Hope it works out.
 
I know this isn't helping, but relying on an 8 year old HD as your sole storage point for very important stuff isn't an optimal solution...

Back on topic. The sound you are describing either indicates that there has been damage done to either the heads, or the "alignment track" on the platters. This is not solvable by the freezer method, and will require professional help.

At the top right corner of this page (totally not plugging their services) there are some "does you're drive sound like..." clips. If your drive sounds like one of those, well, not much you can do.
 
BuBBa said:
I know this isn't helping, but relying on an 8 year old HD as your sole storage point for very important stuff isn't an optimal solution...

Back on topic. The sound you are describing either indicates that there has been damage done to either the heads, or the "alignment track" on the platters. This is not solvable by the freezer method, and will require professional help.

At the top right corner of this page (totally not plugging their services) there are some "does you're drive sound like..." clips. If your drive sounds like one of those, well, not much you can do.
Click to expand...

Who said I was using that as my sole data storage? I'm also have 1.6TB of data on another drive. That thing is almost full. Unfortunately my most important data is on the 250GBer.
 
BuBBa said:
At the top right corner of this page (totally not plugging their services) there are some "does you're drive sound like..." clips. If your drive sounds like one of those, well, not much you can do.
Click to expand...

It sounds like "bad head 2" but from what I remember nowhere near as frequent for the clicks. I just hear the clicks, not the whirring.
 
Holy cow. Are people still this ignorant? Just replace the drive with a new one, and restore your data from your backup(s). Done and done.
 
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Anyone know if these are normal or could've caused a problem?

Brahmzy said:
Holy cow. Are people still this ignorant? Just replace the drive with a new one, and restore your data from your backup(s). Done and done.
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You're really helpful.
 
The drive may be ok.
I've had a drive that clicked like crazy and managed to recover it, it was perfect again after.
It depends on the cause, but sometimes a bad write can damage the format or data, causing the drive to continuously retry.

I used HDD Regenerator.
If op can find someone with a copy, see if he will lend you it.
Needs to be run over night as it takes a long time to scan and repair the whole drive at low level.
 
Well, I threw it in the freezer in three ziploc bags. I tried to get as much air out as possible. I'll have it in there for at least 16 hours, because I have work in the morning. I'll let you know if it works or not. This was probably stupid, but I booted it up again before putting it in the freezer and heard two or three clicks then it stopped clicking. BIOS didn't detect it.
 
r-486 said:
Well, I threw it in the freezer in three ziploc bags. I tried to get as much air out as possible. I'll have it in there for at least 16 hours, because I have work in the morning. I'll let you know if it works or not. This was probably stupid, but I booted it up again before putting it in the freezer and heard two or three clicks then it stopped clicking. BIOS didn't detect it.
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That doesn't sound good at all. I wish you luck, you will need it.
 
If the BIOS doesnt detect it, its probably game over.
 
Nenu said:
If the BIOS doesnt detect it, its probably game over.
Click to expand...

Eh, not necessarily. I've used "Data Rescue PC3" software before and it worked, and the drive was not visible from BIOS. I also had a RAID 6 array kick the bucket on me and that was a 2G recovery from a professional service, argh..

It's too late now, but freezing the drive takes it way out of normal operating ranges and is a real gamble if you ask me.
 
Been there, done that. My wife still occasionally bitches at me for loosing all her college papers/documents/photos when a hard drive crashed years ago. I've never been lucky enough to have the freezer trick work on a failed drive.

The good thing though, you'll make sure to have backups after this ;) I'm paranoid enough now that I back everything up to an external NAS, plus signed up for a 1-year free trial with Crashplan and back up all important files (sitting at about 1.4 TB backed up with them now). When the trial is up, I'll be a paying customer with them...

I wish you luck...
 
Important things should always have three copies.
Live data, the backup, and the offsite.
I clone my live drive to another hard disk and throw the HD in the safe.
I also backup things to Blu-ray Discs and off site those to random family member houses.

To add some info about the HD crash, I've had a seagate with the click-clacks. The freeze trick let it spin up once and gave me about ten minutes of data before it locked up the PC.
I'm guessing the amount of data on the HD will take a while to move off so try to attack the very important stuff first. When the normal spinning starts to warm up the drive it will start to click again and crash.

Good luck.
Nick
 
farscapesg1 said:
Been there, done that. My wife still occasionally bitches at me for loosing all her college papers/documents/photos when a hard drive crashed years ago. I've never been lucky enough to have the freezer trick work on a failed drive.

The good thing though, you'll make sure to have backups after this ;) I'm paranoid enough now that I back everything up to an external NAS, plus signed up for a 1-year free trial with Crashplan and back up all important files (sitting at about 1.4 TB backed up with them now). When the trial is up, I'll be a paying customer with them...

I wish you luck...
Click to expand...

Word.

I've been pushing about 10TB up to Crashplan for about a year now after my "incident"... about 70% done now.

I had about 60% of everything (at the time) up on Backblaze, and it was about $1500 to get my 4TB back from them... And I still had to go to data recovery for the important stuff. That was another couple thousand bucks.

Luckily, I got EVERYTHING back. It was expensive, but quite a relief.

I'm much more careful now- also replicating to an array at the office with the Crashplan software.
 
OP here... I took it out the freezer and the BIOS is now detecting it as ROM Model-Hawk. I don't know what this is maybe some kind of firmware error. I could not boot into Windows to save my life including safe mode. I have a Knoppix live disc and it's showing it as ROM Model-Hawk, 8GB, firmware version 02.01C30 with no files visible. It clicks three times when starting always but then stops. Only in freezer for two hours.
 
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r-486 said:
Who said I was using that as my sole data storage? I'm also have 1.6TB of data on another drive. That thing is almost full. Unfortunately my most important data is on the 250GBer.
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You can't be serious. You're completely not understanding the point.

What other data you store elsewhere is completely irrelevant. The point was that you use one geriatric HD to store your most important data without another data store for THE SAME DATA.

Anyway, data can't be that important. Better luck next time.
 
r-486 said:
OP here... I took it out the freezer and the BIOS is now detecting it as ROM Model-Hawk. I don't know what this is maybe some kind of firmware error. I could not boot into Windows to save my life including safe mode. I have a Knoppix live disc and it's showing it as ROM Model-Hawk, 8GB, firmware version 02.01C30 with no files visible. It clicks three times when starting always but then stops. Only in freezer for two hours.
Click to expand...

Well, these symptoms indicate that the firmware is no longer able to access the platters at all. Some parts of the firmware and model data are stored on the platters and the drive not identifying itself properly just means it lost access to that data. At this point there is basically nothing you can do yourself, any successful access is purely based on luck. If the data is important send it to a data recovery service. But there is a chance that the freezer trick completely killed the drive due to condensation on platters and heads. That "trick" should only be used as a last-ditch attempt before you throw the drive away, not before you use a professional recovery service.

I would just write the data off and learn from that incident to make backups next time. A recovery can cost you thousands, you have to decide yourself if it is worth it.

TCM said:
Anyway, data can't be that important. Better luck next time.
Click to expand...
No need to get that harsh. I think everyone that works with computers for a long time encountered a data loss at some point and usually learned from it.
 
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You asked me why the facepalm - I think most of the comments in this thread answer that question. If you've had an HDD for 8 years, you've used computers long enough to know that hard drives fail, it's not an if question, it's a when.

But as unlikely as it is to make any difference, you could always try a new PCB, that test alone is quite cheaper then a professional recovery service.

But FYI, every step you're doing now will make a real professional recovery more unlikely, so IF the data is really that important that you would consider shelving out the money, stop whatever you're doing and take it to a pro.
 
r-486 said:
OP here... I took it out the freezer and the BIOS is now detecting it as ROM Model-Hawk. I don't know what this is maybe some kind of firmware error. I could not boot into Windows to save my life including safe mode. I have a Knoppix live disc and it's showing it as ROM Model-Hawk, 8GB, firmware version 02.01C30 with no files visible. It clicks three times when starting always but then stops. Only in freezer for two hours.
Click to expand...
If you have another computer hook the HD up to that as a secondary drive and try to transfer the files to the boot HD.

If you have a spare HD, reload the computer on that drive and then put the bad HD in as the secondary, try to move files over.

Don't try and boot from the bad HD.
 
I see you're running truecrypt. I've got the NSA on the phone right now; they're looking into your "problem."
 
It was only two hours in the freezer. I'm thinking it's still good. I didn't notice any condensation on the outside when taking it out when it warmed up, and I had my room at 60-65 degrees for added safety at the time. Anyone can tell whether that PCB is bad by the looks? It looks a bit odd in a couple spots I highlighted. Maybe I can get by replacing the board. I have another HDD with same exact model that went bad some time ago. I could use that board maybe? Anyone recommend recovery services, and ones that don't look at the data? I have sensitive data that I can't disclose. The data is very important to me.

Hagrid said:
If you have another computer hook the HD up to that as a secondary drive and try to transfer the files to the boot HD.

If you have a spare HD, reload the computer on that drive and then put the bad HD in as the secondary, try to move files over.

Don't try and boot from the bad HD.
Click to expand...

I never had it set as primary, and I never did boot from it. I have quite a few HDDs though. Would it really matter trying a different motherboard, PSU, or PC?
 
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+1 for the off-site backups. I have a WSE 2012 box which backs up my PC every night, and I do manual backups to a USB 3 HDD every so often which is stored off-site.

If nothing else, put it in your car.
 
I think afterwards I'll end up buying two 4TB HDDs and run them in RAID 1.
Click to expand...

You will still need to run backups. RAID1 (or any other raid level) does not prevent data loss due to power supply problems, virus, accidental deletion, natural disaster ..
 
r-486 said:
The data is priceless, worth more than I can afford. I think afterwards I'll end up buying two 4TB HDDs and run them in RAID 1. I don't care if my OS drive goes bad, it just has programs and the OS anyway, and I'll probably end up moving the less important data to my current 2TB drive.
Click to expand...

If the data is priceless then you might have rushed too much with the freezer trick. Hopefully a professional service can get it back. I would immediately shelve the drive and start saving.

RAID1 is not a backup, it's for increasing up-time so when one drive fails the data is still accessible in the same place. For a data backup in the same system, I just robocopy from one drive to the other. I would also recommend CrashPlan like another poster in this thread for an offsite backup.
 
I filed taxes recently, so I'll be getting some money back. Yeah... I'm really late. As long as you don't owe them money, there's no fee. I needed that money. Anything I can do myself first before sending it away that wouldn't cause any damage? I'd like to change the PCB myself if that wouldn't damage anything, but maybe I shouldn't bother if it's clicking. Like I said I have a spare drive with same model but that thing went bad, too. I haven't looked at that one's board yet to see if it looks different in those couple spots. As you probably figure, I don't know crap about backups. I don't like the idea of doing backups on the web. It'll be terabytes of data.
 
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r-486 said:
I filed taxes recently, so I'll be getting some money back. Yeah... I'm really late. As long as you don't owe them money, there's no fee. I needed that money. Anything I can do myself first before sending it away that wouldn't cause any damage? I'd like to change the PCB myself if that wouldn't damage anything, but maybe I shouldn't bother if it's clicking. Like I said I have a spare drive with same model but that thing went bad, too. I haven't looked at that one's board yet to see if it looks different in those couple spots.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's going to help. If the disk didn't power at all, I think that's where you look at the PCB. Since it's clicking, its something real bad. Keep it off and ship it out when you're ready, and don't make the same mistake twice.

Recovery I believe is between 500 to a few thousand $ per disk.
 
I just looked at the other HDD, same model. Those spots don't look like that, so they look I suppose defective. The shiny looking round spindle (?) doesn't have the ooze over top of it. Maybe it overheated?
 
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