I have a Western Digital 200Gb IDE drive which I use to back up all my goodies like game, patches, updates,etc... But lately I've been downloading my torrents to it also until....I woke up the other day and checked on downloads only to find the pc had done a restart and jammed at the Windows XP loading screen, so I just hit the reset button, but when it rebooted the back up drive started whining faster and faster and then clicked 10 times then started whining again and clicked 10 times until Windows was up and running then it was quiet. Clicked on my computer to see if the drives were there.... NOOooooo! My precious goodies were gone. What I would like to know is: Why does the drive tick? Would the drive be stuffed? Can it be repaired? Is all my backed up data lost forever?
You may have been hearing the hard drive "click of death"... My Maxtor drive started clicking and locking up Windows... it is kaput, broken, dead, whatever you want to call it. It is usually a very bad sign when they start making odd noises. Typically, if you hear a clicking sound coming from where the hard drive is located in your computer it is a really good indication that there is a serious problem. This could indicate a head crash, corrupt firmware on the drive's ROM chip, an electrical problem like a burned chip, blown heads, a bad pcb controller, overwritten servo's, damage to the hard drive's platters and alignment issues from being dropped, jarred or a power surge. The heads are seeking vainly back and forth Quite possibly. Possibly, for a cost of hundreds of dollars Data recovery is possible, again, hundreds to thousands of dollars. Is it a USB drive? have you tried unplugging it and plugging it in again? Trying it in a different USB port? http://askbobrankin.com/hard_drive_makes_a_clicking_sound.html http://www.adrdatarecovery.com/ http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?forumID=70&threadID=213999&messageID=2287001
Salut Indochine! I would like to know,in case you have some experiences in hard disk drives,the "click of death" as you call it,between these two brands,maxtor and seagate,which one is more likely to get these problems more frequently? Thanks. Vincent.
Well, I have had Hitachi, Seagate and Maxtor drives, and my Maxtor drive has died. People say they run hot. But I am just one person.
Oh dear,i hope the one i'll be getting tomorrow,which is maxtor,won't die on me.I'm a bit worried because it's made in China and not in Singapore as the one i actually have which is still working very well. Do you think i should try to get it exchanged with a seagate?
I would not worry. You might say, "Should I buy a Honda or a Nissan?", and I tell you my Nissan broke down, but the guy next door might say his Nissan was fine for 500,000 km, but his Honda caught fire. My Maxtor that failed was a 40 GB drive and it was 5 years old. My Seagate that I am still using is an 160 GB and it is 3 years old. It might fail next week. It might last 5 more years. You will have a warranty and you will make backups because you know that no hard drive lasts forever. So don't worry! Most hard drives are replaced long before they fail, because newer drives are larger and cheaper.
Yeah,you're right about that.I think i better not try to exchange for another because sometimes i notice that when you exchange something that you have got originally with another one hoping that it will be better,then finally it would be that one you'll be getting headache with and then will say"urgh!!!!i should not have replaced or exchange it in the first place". So i better stick with the one i'll be getting,anyway it comes with a three years warranty.And you're definitely right about what you've said to me. Thanks again for the advice.Un grand merci à toi Indochine. Vincent.
Well to make things worse now my Maxtor 120 GB SATA drive has died also. Not totally though I can still see it in my computer but can only access some files and click on the folder that had Bit Lord installed in it and I get a message saying this folder is corrupt and unreadable use the scandisk. Tried that and nothing happened. Tried formatting and it failed @ 84%. So finally I went and got Sea Tools for DOS to reset up the drive and when it fires up it says "this drive has overheated 253" I told it to test it any way and it found 99 errors before it even reached the first 10% and then failed. So now I’ve lost 320 GB of drives in two days and all in left with is my 36 GB Western Digital Raptor running the windows.
Thats the thing my pc runs cool CPU: 32c MOBO: 34c Video card: avg. 40c and the hard drives are cool to the touch on the side of them got me stumped
