external hard drives?

Question

I have an iomega harddrive that seems to be making these clicking noises and doesnt register..i have the worst luck with these things. Is there any way to get the data off the actual disks inside the hard drive itself without having to go to some data recovery guys? Or at least a store that can repair it? Thanks

yes its a usb plug in device. Is there anything out there that can read the actual platters themselves? Just curious, thanks again

Answer 1

Clicking usually means the drive is gone.

You could try opening up the housing and taking out the drive itself, and installing it in your computer. It could possibly be a problem with the housing, although that's not likely, there are no moving parts and so nothing to 'click'.

Your external drive _should_ just be backups, so losing it shouldn't be a big deal since everything should be on your primary drive. Of course, people don't use them properly.

I'd say there is a 99% chance your data is gone, unless you go to a data recovery firm who can take the platters out of the drive and put them in another functional drive.

Answer 2

This is a USB Harddrive that you're hooking up to a USB port on your computer? And it won't register when you plug it in as a new drive in windows? ooo bad news. It makes sounds huh? did you get any error messages before this happened? Seems like you should have. It sounds like the HD is bad now. I've been paying attention to drive recovery processes, and one of the cheapest, and quite frankly unbelievable, is to take the drive out, put it in the freezer for the night, and in the morning put it back in and it has a 50% of working for half an hour to get yer data off of it. THROW THE DRIVE AWAY AFTER THIS, IT'S DEAD!
*DL.tv said this and someone wrote in on how they were correct, they should've thrown the drive away instead of reusing it and loosing more important data than before*
This isn't a definite answer, but if what I've said is correct, this may be your only option besides paying big bucks.
And I hope to god you weren't referring to a zip drive from iomega... =)
Hope this helps...

Answer 3

They make software that you can use..... But if the drive is really gone you probably will have to go to one of those data recovery experts.


Do a google for Data Recovery Software....

BTW I would stop using the drive because the clicking nosies are probably the heads rubbing against the mirror finnished platters... Scratting them thus making data recovery alot harder.