HD beeping and scrreching

N

Neural Interface

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2004
Messages
384
I booted up my comp like normal and my 200g Maxtor DM9 made 3 rising triple beeps, then a very unhealthy sounding screech noise.

I checked the HD in my external enclosure and it still beeped so I know it is definately the drive itself, im kinda guessing it maybe dead which makes me wanna /cry at the stuff I have lost.
So has anyone idea what the beeps mean? I have checked maxtors site and see nothing about it, so im kinda clueless at the moment.

Thanks.
 
Unplug it and stop using it NOW!!!! You have one chance to pull your data off, maybe not even that.

Does windows recognize the drive?

If it does then download http://www.roadkil.net/ unstop copier, it will copy your files without stopping for read errors. Set it to only a moderate recovery rate. You want to get off what you can in a hurry.

Only grab the stuff you need. No need to make the heads work harder than they need to. After you get off the important stuff then grab the rest of the stuff till the drive is dead.

After all that, then RMA it and get a new one.

Good luck.

Oh, and don't let it be your boot drive. Use it as a secondary drive (on its own controller) so it will have to work less and your recovery chances will be greater.
 
Unfortunetly at boot up it tries to recognise it but fails to do so, it seems likely that it is dead but I wanted to just check all possibilities first and I still have not found any answer as to the beeps.
It is strange also that it seemed to die instantly, it was working fine then just wasn't.

Thanks for your help though.

btw what about the data on the drive, can/do they check it?
 
I had a maxtor 160gb do that to me.. same symptoms. I was able to save my data though before it completly died.. It would not work in my computer, but worked in my external enclosure for a little bit.. It died the next day. Since then I've only bought WD's. The maxtor resides in the city dump, but I took the platters out and used them as coasters. :p Might as well get some post-death use out of it.

Just try putting the hdd in different computers and enclosures to extract you critical data. I've found that with dying hard drives, if you put it in a computer as a slave hard drive, it sometimes will recognize it for a while so you can get data off it.
 
throw it in the freezer over night, than try to get another HD, load windows on it and get it up than take out that HD in the morning, hook it up and get your data off FAST
 
The screeching is a sure sign that the drive has succomed to some sort of heat related failure. Certain Maxtor drives are particularly prone to this kind of failure... and the noise is unmistakable. Very loud, screeching, and most unpleasant sounding.
 
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