Help with HDD, buggered?

Jamesyboyjim · 27 Jun 2013 at 19:27

Hi all

I was out on sunday with my missus' family when her aunt asked me if I could look at her netbook as its naffed. I tried booting it and all it gets to is a message saying 'disk read error has occured press ctrl alt del to restart, thats all it does

we took the drive out and tried it in her bro's pc but windows doesn't seem to boot properly on his pc with this drive attached, even though it was not set as a boot drive or anything, it just gets past the loginscreen then the desktop never appears, although ctrl alt delete works and we were about to see that the faulty drives activity is at 100% and you can hear it spinning.

I decide to take a stab at the drive with my pc as I have a sata to usb cable and plugging it in also makes my pc go slowly but i'm able to see the drive in windows just not access it or run any programs even though again, it isnt the primary drive, it just spins at 100% and makes windows lock up until you unplug it.

We have ordered a replacement drive but trouble is theres lots of irreplacable pictures on the drive we'd like to recover although it isn't looking likely now. Is there anything one of you geniuses could help with? Is spinning at 100% a common sign of a dead hdd? its a 2.5" drive not that I think that'll make any difference.

thanx all!

brendy · 27 Jun 2013 at 20:45

Its not the spinning you need to listen to, get your ear onto it and listen for repetitive clicks/clunks, if you hear that then it is constantly trying to read/unpark the heads and is a goner.

Jamesyboyjim · 27 Jun 2013 at 21:05

thanx for replying brendy,

I have the drive pressed against my ear as we speak and its constantly spinning and every 2 seconds its making a click in the style a woodpecker erm, pecks lol, short sharp loading noises for about 2 seconds in length. I'm guessing thats a bad sign then?

brendy · 2 Jul 2013 at 17:12

Yea, that sounds pretty terminal, I did have luck once when I tapped it off a desk (read: firmly) and it came back to life for a short time, enough to copy some but not all stuff off. Worth a shot if you are not overly fussed.
The looks you get when trying to diagnose these issues sometimes

Jamesyboyjim · 2 Jul 2013 at 17:32

When you say tapped it would do you mean? Although the drive has now been replaced it would still be good to try something lol

darael · 2 Jul 2013 at 17:40

Almost a little harder than tapping the table with your fingers - sort of the force when you close a book and it makes a satisfying noise.

Jamesyboyjim · 2 Jul 2013 at 17:43

Thanx for replying darael, I see what you both mean now, I'll have a try later then, if I still have no joy the hammer will be coming out

brendy · 2 Jul 2013 at 18:14

As above, enough to bang but not like you are hitting nails in. You want to hold it sideways so grip it by the two narrow sides and tap it on its thin edge while holding it sideways.

Jamesyboyjim · 2 Jul 2013 at 18:17

Never realised hitting a hdd had such an art to it

Thanx again for your help, I'll report what happens lol

brendy · 2 Jul 2013 at 20:05

Stick with us matey, youll go far!

darael · 2 Jul 2013 at 20:22

Failing that, shove it in the freezer overnight and see what happens when you plug it in the following morning. You'll need to act fast to get as much data from the drive as possible, before it warms up.

Jamesyboyjim · 12 Jul 2013 at 16:38

I've only just come back to this thread so I didn't see the freezer reply but that'll be my next attempt. Have just been hitting it for the last few minutes but to no avail, hitting it would give me a beep from the drive but theres also a rattle with every strike, seems like its well and truely had it. It was worth a shot though

Steampunk · 13 Jul 2013 at 00:25

If it's an overheating issue, you can use some of those freezer packs to keep the drive cold while it's sitting out of the case as you try to get the data off it. In fact, once in a pinch, I used a bag of frozen peas, and that worked pretty well! You probably want to put something from the freezer into a ziplock back to catch any condensation or moisture and keep the drive dry.