smc89
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/27/05
Posts: 2656
Loc: Northern Berks Co. PA
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Well I think my external hard drive just went down the toilet. It makes this clunking sound when it tries to load up. It will try 3 times to start then just sits idle. My PC does not even recognize the external drive also. So does this mean it's toast? And if so, is there any way to recover some of the files on there. Almost 3/4 was burned to dvds and well the rest was not. I'd appreciate your input.
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Scott M.
Olympus E-500 & E-510
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JAT Observatory
Space Freak
Reged: 02/20/05
Posts: 5293
Loc: Eastern PA
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I have never had much luck recovering data from crashed drives.
Good luck.
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-Marcus
Earth is the solar system's ghetto
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rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
Posts: 37953
Loc: Phx, AZ
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One trick that has worked in the past - but not too often; but hey, what have you got to loose? is freezing the driver over night.
It's only a temporary "fix" so you can pull the data off.
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Ron
NS11GPS
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Snow dog
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/17/05
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Loc: Alberta Canada
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I have heard of that trick from a few people.
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Marc
Someone get these crazy dogs off me
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rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
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Loc: Phx, AZ
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I think it only works in a very narrow band of failures.
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Ron
NS11GPS
Pronto
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Greg K.
Reged: 12/11/03
Posts: 9454
Loc: Clifton Park, NY
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Quote:
Well I think my external hard drive just went down the toilet. It makes this clunking sound when it tries to load up. It will try 3 times to start then just sits idle. My PC does not even recognize the external drive also. So does this mean it's toast? And if so, is there any way to recover some of the files on there. Almost 3/4 was burned to dvds and well the rest was not. I'd appreciate your input.
I think you're hosed. Try the freeze trick, you don't have anything else to lose at this point.
If it's super valuable irreplaceable data, you could try a data recovery company, but it won't be cheap and there are no guarantees. What they typically have to do is take the platters from your drive and put them in a replacement drive in a clean room to read them.
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smc89
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/27/05
Posts: 2656
Loc: Northern Berks Co. PA
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Thanks guys. I put it in the freezer before I left for work this morning. I have my doubts but it's worth a try.
I did price a few data recovery service centers and for what's on there I'll just take the loss of data. My other half by the way wants the data back. So I've got an ear full the past few nights. I told her its mostly photos but some are hers and we all know how that goes over.
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Scott M.
Olympus E-500 & E-510
Coronado PST
Stellarvue 80ED
Orion XT8I Dob.
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smc89
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/27/05
Posts: 2656
Loc: Northern Berks Co. PA
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Ok, so I tried the deep freeze trick. But as you can guess it didn't work. So I guess that's the end of the road for that one.
But I would like to ask if any of you have recommendations on another external hard drive? The one that died was a western digital 500 gig, so needless to say I don't think I'd but another one of those. Maybe it was just one bad apple in the basket so I'm open to ideas and opinions.
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Scott M.
Olympus E-500 & E-510
Coronado PST
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 15766
Loc: Brooker, FL
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[soapbox]The first step in data rentention is RAID 1 or RAID 5, which negates the loss of a primary drive.
Repetitive backups to an external drive are useful, except when the external fails. File storage/archiving on a solo drive (external or internal) is dicey - loss of the drive=loss of the data.[/soapbox]
As for me, I have 2 desktops and a laptop. Both of the former have RAID 1 primaries and internal or external backup drives. I backup from the #1 PC to the #2 PC regularly; archival files are also duplicated.
For my soon-to-be new PC, RAID 5 will be installed, and current PC #1 will become PC #2, and current PC #2 will be idled until I have an observatory.
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Snow dog
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/17/05
Posts: 1614
Loc: Alberta Canada
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Here's an off the wall thought. If you have another external or any HD kicking around would you be able to take the disk out of the bad drive and mount it in another drive and be able to access it for backup?
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Marc
Someone get these crazy dogs off me
12" LX200 Classic
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smc89
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/27/05
Posts: 2656
Loc: Northern Berks Co. PA
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Thanks Rusty on the Raid info, I'll look into that.
It's a thought Marc. I'd have to really research it and see how hard it would be to do. I do have a very old pc, gateway with probably a 60 /70 gig drive. Never had one apart so we're in unknown waters without a life boat. I guess there is nothing to lose.
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Scott M.
Olympus E-500 & E-510
Coronado PST
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Greg K.
Reged: 12/11/03
Posts: 9454
Loc: Clifton Park, NY
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It would almost certainly have to be the exact same model hard drive.
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Joe Cipriano
Entropy Personified
Reged: 09/03/05
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Loc: Uh... anyone have a GPS?
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This may sound silly, but I've actually had success with it several times: Change the drive orientation prior to booting. If you normally keep it horizontal (and it's no longer booting in that position), turn it to vertical before powering up.
Note: This has never worked more than once on any drive it's been successful with. If it works, make darn sure you're ready to copy the data RIGHT NOW.
Certainly doesn't work all the time, but it costs nothing to try it... 
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jfosc
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 05/29/07
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Loc: Quakertown, PA
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I've seen the freezer trick work once. Definitely worth a try.
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-Jim
"The Universe is expanding. That should help ease the traffic" - Stephen Wright
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KimB
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Reged: 02/28/08
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Loc: UK
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Will the drive come out of the external case? If so can you connect it directly to your PC using the slave EIDE or second serial ATA connector? If so, you could bypass the external interface and may be able to get to some data.
I had lots of hard disk problems a while back. Disks making the clicking sound you describe. I believe that the problem in my case was the implementation of 48 bit LBA being switched on by a windows update, which although was supported by my motherboard wasn't by the bios. 48bit LBA is needed in disks over about 129Gb. After wrecking 2 new 250mb hard drives, I decided to format it 129Gb as I didn't need the extra.
For backup I use a network attached Freecom FSG, a very small File server, with a built in web server, FTP server, media server.... I can access it from any of my PC's over the network. The new version called a Storage Gateway and has wireless lan built in. They also do a storage tank with raid up to 2Tb. See Freecom.com
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8" Meade lx90 LNT
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smc89
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/27/05
Posts: 2656
Loc: Northern Berks Co. PA
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Thanks KimB. I'll have to try direct connection to the pc. It's not to much to take out of the case. It's probably time for the tower to come out of the cabinet for cleaning anyhow. So it sounds like a plan.
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Scott M.
Olympus E-500 & E-510
Coronado PST
Stellarvue 80ED
Orion XT8I Dob.
Orion XT12I Dob.
Celestron 15x70
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KimB
member
Reged: 02/28/08
Posts: 62
Loc: UK
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I got so fed up taking the case of my PC, that I bought a Magic Bridge. Mine is like this and does EIDE to usb and SATA to eSATA. The new one does the lot see version II
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8" Meade lx90 LNT
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Mattbtn
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 02/08/06
Posts: 2822
Loc: Chattanooga, TN
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Quote:
But I would like to ask if any of you have recommendations on another external hard drive?
Sorry to hear about the toubles!
I'm planning on upgrading my backup solution this fall to a Drobo, and am going to store & run it from my office.
Not sure what kind of dollars you are looking at dumping into a solution, but for the price I don't think the Drobo's are very bad at all, considering they'll grow with you and offer the redundancy that Rusty spoke about.
www.drobo.com
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"Computers help us solve the many mysteries of the universe. They also help us make the same mistake many times, really fast."
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