Failed storage drive? :(

[RollerBall]

So I think my storage drive has failed. It's quite a few years old and ironically due for replacement following a rebuild (new drive has already arrived).

I was playing quite a long session yesterday with headphones on. When I took them off I noticed a 'clicking' noise from my HDD. I restarted my computer to see if it would go away and after a long boot time (spent quite a while on my motherboard post screen) the clicking had gone away but the drive no longer shows up in windows explorer/mobo boot order.

I've disconnected the drive at the moment to prevent any further damage. I don't really have any further ideas other than to try it in a different system or to see if it can come up in Linux. It wasn't showing up in my motherboard bios though so I don't rate my chances highly... There was irreplaceable work and photos that would be a ballache/shame to lose. Any ideas/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[P4Clock]

if the drive is dead sadly other than sending it off there is not much you can do. if its not showing in bios i cant see it loading in linux ever.

i would personally just try different sata ports and try a few boot's or an external enclosure and try to read the data from a different system.
the clicking is normally a stuck head on the platter, you can open it up and move the head off the platter and then try to boot to it but that is a one hit wonder get in and get data off fast sort of a job

 

[BlackAle]

Simple solution, just restore from your backup storage drive...