Ok i've had 120gb maxtor hard drive in an external case for a while now, a few months back i went to play some music, and all the music files were gone from it, but they were still using the 10gbs of space that the songs were using...thats one problem, but not my main problem, now the thing wont even work at all, i plug it in the usb drive, and nothing shows up but i get this strange noise coming from the hard drive, it beeps like a song then leads to a buzzing noise...i have it recorded if anyone wants to take a listen to it..
It sounds like the circuitry on the drive is knackered. The only solution to that is to have it replaced. While data recovery experts could potentially get the data back off the drive, it would need to be very important, as recovery jobs can cost $300 and above.
DATA recovery can cost upwards for 1500$, if they hav eto take out the platters. plan 1. try removing the HDD from the external and hooking it up to the IDE on your motherboard. 99% of the time the controller card in the external dies, failing to power the disk itself. plan 2. if plan 1 doesnt work, seal the hard disk (just the disk, no external) tightly in multiple plastic bags and put it in the freezer overnight, have the computer opened an ready to go, hook the hard disk up to the IDE chain off the mother board have jumper pins correct. Once its hooked up boot up windows, if the hard disk is seen move data as fast as you can to your main hard disk. NOTE: THIS WORKS SOMETIMES!!!!
But not often. In this case, it seems quite obvious to me that there's been a circuitry failure. Given this fact, I highly doubt the freezer trick will work and it could result in irreparable failure to the drive that will mean that data recovery experts won't be able to recover the data.
