I have 2 IDE drives installed on my computer and the slave drive just started acting sluggish and was making this sort of intermittent "ticking" noise. Anyhow, the computer didn't want to boot up completely yesterday and now the harddrive isn't even being detected. I hooked it up to a different computer to try and salvage all my music and what not. It started transferring to my external drive, but after about 3 minutes it stopped being detected again. I still can't get it to be detected. What's my best bet here? I have almost 10gigs of music on here and some other important install files. SIGH

 

you're SOL unless you wanna shell out some big bucks.

 

HAHA damn. as I was clicking on the link to read your reply I was thinking, "Man, I hope he doesn't say, 'You're SOL'".

So that "ticking" noise wasn't a good thing, huh.

 

ticking=bad

it means there's a hardware problem with the drive. you can send it to a data recovery specialist but they are expensive as hell.

 

You have to ask yourself how important the stuff on the drive is to you. I mean music and software installs is one thing, but stuff like your tax records and investment information is another.

Ontrack, the kings of data recovery, now sell their own software to consumers. I have no idea how expensive it is or how well it actually works, but here it is.

http://www.ontrack.com/Homepage.aspx...ename=Software

Lastly, when you're at the point of saying f*ck it and tossing the drive, you can try the old trick of putting it in the freezer for five minutes or so. On certain occasions, this has been known to resolve mechanical problems long enough to pull info off the drive. If at all possible, you obviously want to do this in a low humidity environment to avoid condensation.

 

but if the system doesn't recognize the disk (the bios that is) no software package will. i heard about the freezing thing and i'm guessing it's for drives with thermal problems. worth a shot. try banging on it with a mallet too.

 

The controller is failing. Time to get some type of forensic software to pull off the data if you still can.

 

forensic software?

 

Have you determined that its definitely that slave drive that's the problem? If you have another spare hd I would connect it and see what happens.

If the HD is relatively new you probably still have warranty on it. I've returned HD's back to WD and Maxtor with no problems, no questions asked on their website. Usually they don't do data recovery but you can try to make a case for it see what they'll say. At minimum you'll get another comparable HD as a replacement.

Anything on storage media is subject to loss or corruption so don't get lazy...backup (yeah as if anyone does it). Data recovery is over $1000 if I remember from my last inquiry.

 

Hm, I appreciate all the responses, but none of this is looking too good for me. I'm pretty sure it's the HD since I've never had a problem with it before and all of a sudden I am. Also, that ticking just started. Also, this is a HD I switched over from my old computer. It's still not too old...maybe 4-5 years? I need a miracle.

I'm NOT re-downloading 8-9GB of music.

 

how would forensic software help?

 

It wasn't a mallet, but I got a failing drive working by setting it on the counter and giving it a weak bitch slap on its top. Worked for about an hour before it crapped out again.

 

Yeah sounds like SOL. Man I feel for ya.

 

With all the reports we get here of failed hard disks and blown power supplies, I hope you guys are learning how to use backup software and purchasing UPS units.

 

throw it in the freezer for 10 minutes hook it up quick and transfer the data off

 

 

Word to the freezer. Sometimes it does work. But a ticking hard drive = head crash= toast.
There are services that you can send the drive to & they can get the data off. But they cost alot of $$.