How best to save the data on a failing drive?

[TheBigCheese]

As the thread title really.

I've got an HDD which has begun to click click click every second or so this evening...I rebooted and it wouldn't get past POST until I unplugged it, then it posted fine so obviously the disk is on the way out and fast.

Does anyone have any suggestions of the best way to get the data off it successfully?

I have it mounted horizontally at the moment, would it help or hinder if I mounted it into an external Icybox where it's held vertically?


Thanks very much.

 

[CaptainCrash]

Hard drives don't care which way up they're mounted, and yes, an external enclosure seems your best bet in the circumstances you've described (it's not uncommon for a mobo to fail to POST when a dodgy HDD is directly connected).

I wouldn't hold out too much hope given that you're already hearing the click of death, but I guess you won't know until you try.

 

[TheBigCheese]

Cheers, I'll give it a go later.

It's a bit of a nightmare this one, the drive started clicking and then froze Windows.

I had to restart it and when I did one of the other drives (on the same SATA controller) has knackered up as well, Windows won't recognise it and won't do a checkdisk...I'm a bit knackered really!

 

[alex24]

Search google for the freezer trick. I've used this with success several times in the past, but you must be careful not to get it wet. Also, try and recover data on a non-essential machine.