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Wierd Harddrive problem?

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I have a HDD (20gig fugitsu two and a half years old) that has stopped being recognized by the bios and I would like to retrieve some data off it.

Symptoms: From the moment i switch on the pc it makes about 20 clunking noises then stops but keeps spinning without any noise apart from the normal spinning sound for about 20 minutes then it starts over again, 20 clunks or so then spins quietly for another 20 minutes ???

Attempted:
==========
* Setting bios manually.
* changing position master-slave.
* tried slapping.
* changed PCB from an identical working drive.
* tried on another pc – both pc have onboard controllers.
* tried freezing…

but nothing just goes through its routine as I stated above.

Actually I managed to get it recognized once by the bios when I froze it, although it gave me an erratic name well it was just one or two letters in the description of the drive name was out (binary letters), I then booted into winows2000 and through the Disk Management Console it identified all three partitions that I had on the drive before it broke, but didn’t give me any drive letters. I believe it must of been some due from the freezer that i found on the pcb (i’ll never do that again).

Can anyone identify this timed clunking noise, or has anyone had a similar problem, or maybe someone can recommend some sort of low-level software tool to help recognition, just want enough time to get the data off the drive then will throw away. Anything!

please help…

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Sounds like the drive has had it. You may try connecting it to another machine as a slave drive to recover your data.

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read my attempts – already tried that.

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Clunking sounds … Tick Tick Tick Tick…

The heads are off alignment. You can send it somewhere to be rebuilt for like 200-1000 USD if it’s that important.

Otherwise, all the recovery software available will ONLY work if the hard drive is identified by the system Bios. If it is not, then it’s past it’s years of service and is now a beautiful paperweight.

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already stated that i did get some response/identification from the bios even though it was a bit eratic.

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You can try the free utility VirtualLab Data Recovery Software v3.3.5, to recover your data from the dead HD. You can download it from PCWorld.com.

Hope this helps…:0)

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The clunking specifies that the drive internal parts are making contact,meaning the spinner or heads of the arm have become loose enough to make contact

Check the Tech Republic 200 ways to revive a hard drive to see if any of the suggessted methods would be of help in retrieving the data,you could also try installing a new hard drive designated as master and old one as slave and back-up the old data to the new drive

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thanks but alreday checked it.

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Seen this problem many times.
This is a “good old fashioned hard disk crash”.
The head has hit the disk(At track 0000), for some reason, and damaged it.
The electronics can not find track 0000.
That is the searching noise you are hearing.
Everything is referenced off of track 0000.
So, the drive has to find 0000 first.
It can not do that. The disk is damaged.
Most of our customers buy a system backup after this experience.
CD Burners, Second Hard Drives , and Tape are the most common solutions.
Recovery is expensive, but worse, time consuming.
Hope the data was not too valuable, or you can reconstruct it.
Regards, Chris

Reply To: Wierd Harddrive problem?

In reply to Wierd Harddrive problem?

Sounds like data output from the drive is intermittant, system is telling the heads to go to sector 0 and it is already there (checks at scheduled times or sporadic data output from the drive). Freezing and putting it in the system would result in better connection (water jumper) for a short period of time (access with problems are possible). Drive is not recognized because no output from the pcb on the HD. Freeze it in a bag, put it in an operational system (with CD burner) and get as much data off as fast as possible, did not get it all, try again.

The longer you freeze it the longer it will maintain the jumper (humidity against the cool metal of the PCB).

Data recovery tools are great, if you can “talk” to the drive. Must be recognized in the bios to use.

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Fujitsu does make a low level format program and I have used it once to actually fix that problem, but like they said if it isn’t seen by and communicating via the BIOS it won’t show the data…I was freezing the drive to get it to low level and it took 4 times to get it to allow the diagnostic program to complete, but when it did that clunking stopped and all the sectors that showed bad before were fixed. It’s now a simple slave in a friend & neighbors box and still working 3 yrs later. I would never use it again as a main drive though 😉

I have frozen so many drives and never knew why that actually worked but it usually does long enough to recover the data if persistent enough…TY for the reasonable explaination.

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