External hard drive recovery - help

[AndyT]

I have a 320GB external hard drive for backing up old photos and the like but it appears to be non functioning at the moment. All I can here is a 'clicking' noise and cant hear the discs actually spinning. I've back up again most of the pictures on CD-Roms but have a bout 3 years of photos which don't appear to be on my PC or on CD-roms so suspect I backed them to the external drive and its now gone belly up.

Can anyone recomend or know of a company that can recover the files from an hard disk drive like this.

Any advice much appreciated, many thanks

AndyT

 

[John Armstrong]

I know you can get hard drive caddies for laptop / computer hard drives, as my son needed one recently Might work for you if there's no better option.

Just hit google and think this might be of some use:

http://www.techrescueonline.co.uk/aberdeen-data-recovery.html

 

[(RIP) drillam]

s'funny , but, I just took two 1Tb drives to a little local shop this week coz they went phhhtttt at the same time. Like you, all my pics are on them.
Anyway the guy called me yesterday and said the caddy's were shagged but he could see all the stuff on them. He's ordered new caddy's and I should have it all back in a few days.

 

[Popell]

I have a 320GB external hard drive for backing up old photos and the like but it appears to be non functioning at the moment. All I can here is a 'clicking' noise and cant hear the discs actually spinning. I've back up again most of the pictures on CD-Roms but have a bout 3 years of photos which don't appear to be on my PC or on CD-roms so suspect I backed them to the external drive and its now gone belly up.

Can anyone recomend or know of a company that can recover the files from an hard disk drive like this.

Any advice much appreciated, many thanks

AndyT

Is the drive a Seagate Barracuda?, I worked on one that had 'bricked' and found info on the web showing how to use hyperterminal and an old nokia phone lead connected to a couple of pins.
The drive fails because it was switched off in a particular state or some block was at a particular value at switch off. Can't remember the details but having been quoted up to a grand for retieval, a couple of quid for a lead from china, a bit of wire butchery, tapping on the keyboard and I got the thing back to life and was able to extract all the data.
Another option I looked at was rebuilding an identical drive using the plattens with the data on them. This would have been my next step but thankfully, not necessary.

Best of luck

 

[vette]

I have a 320GB external hard drive for backing up old photos and the like but it appears to be non functioning at the moment. All I can here is a 'clicking' noise and cant hear the discs actually spinning. I've back up again most of the pictures on CD-Roms but have a bout 3 years of photos which don't appear to be on my PC or on CD-roms so suspect I backed them to the external drive and its now gone belly up.

Can anyone recomend or know of a company that can recover the files from an hard disk drive like this.

Any advice much appreciated, many thanks

AndyT

.
Hi Andy,

You don't mention if it's the older 3 and a half inch drive, or the smaller, newer 2 inch, generally also found in Lap tops.

If it's the smaller, 2 inch, then can I suggest you try a good quality lead.
I have known leads to develop high resistance, near the plugs, and they haven't been given the +5 volts to spin the disc up properly.

If it's the older hard drive, then possibly suggest fitting it into a desk top computer, as a slave.

Slave to master config, is done with small jumpers, normally little black things about 4 to 5mm long, and very easily dropped.

But try another mini USB lead first, and maybe into a different computer, perhaps the computer your plugging into had a power supply issue, and isn't giving enough power, milli amps, to spin up the drive platters.

Gra.

 

[AndyT]

Its a TMT drive. I must admit I have never heard of them before but its been working fine for about 7 or 8 years until recently. I'll do some more research and try some of this and we'll see what happens.

Thanks everyone for your help with this

AndyT

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

At that age it will be a PATA drive and the caddies for them aren't that readily avaliable any more but you can get them. It's worth a try plugging it in to a new one but constant drive clicking usually isn't good news.
No use now but always have your files in 2 places or it isn't backed up. Don't archive to cd or dvd either as after a few years they usually become unreadable. That's the burnt disks and not the commercial stamped bought disks.

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

I had a dead hdd, and was able to get the files off it by using a caddy so it is not the boot disc, plus putting in freezer for 10 minutes which allowed me to read files for about 2 minutes, then back into the freezer. No shit. bin

 

[AndyT]

I know you can get hard drive caddies for laptop / computer hard drives, as my son needed one recently Might work for you if there's no better option.

Just hit google and think this might be of some use:

http://www.techrescueonline.co.uk/aberdeen-data-recovery.html

Just noticed they are on Rosemount in Aberdeen so may give them a bell. Nearly everyone I've spoken to takes a sharp intake of breath when I mention that the drive just 'clicks'.....

 

[AberdeenAngus]

Did you get it sorted Andy ??

 

[AndyT]

Did you get it sorted Andy ??

I havn't as yet although I took it to my brother in laws and he confirmed it was turning and suggested that it may be the caddy. He recomended I use one of my old pc's which had suitable wiring in to use the hard disk as an internal hard disk failing that I have a few options including someone on here who has offered to have a look if I cant get it sorted locally.
In the mean time I have bought a 2nd hard drive and back everything up again and it looks like I am only missing 2004-2008 photos which is still a real downer but not as bad as I first thought as I had 2001-2004 on CD-Roms which I have also backed up again. I'm going to print out the best ones and put them in Albums.

AndyT

 

[AberdeenAngus]

What you can try is to get hold of an identical working drive and transplant the board. I can give it a go for you but it's probably a last resort.

 

[Deleted account 181015003]

Its called the Click of Death

some info here and possible workround

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWR34wKBNS0

 

[AndyT]

I found one clip that shows how to stop the clicking and it will work on any disk that has the 'click of death'

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HMhdEp3SM_w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[AndyT]

I know you can get hard drive caddies for laptop / computer hard drives, as my son needed one recently Might work for you if there's no better option.

Just hit google and think this might be of some use:

http://www.techrescueonline.co.uk/aberdeen-data-recovery.html

Well I tried in vain myself, I got my brother in Law to look at it (he's an I.T. type bod but he didn't have the correct leads to power it up remotely as it was an old style Hard drive and eventually took it to these guys in Aberdeen.

The managed to recover all of the data He wasn't bery specific on how thay managed it but said they have speciallised hardware that they can put the actual discs into and it reads them differently than a normal operating system so I think the normal boot sector was bad. Anyway I'm £130 lighter in my wallet but absolutely over the moon as I have 5 years of photos of my son growing up back

Many thanks to everyone, very much appreciated.

AndyT

I have another question now but that will be a new post