[BlackFrancis]

Hi everybody!

Something's wrong with my hard drive. I don't think it's completely totalled. But I think it's serious.

Every time I'd start up my computer, the HD would make a "click" sound. More of a "chuck" sound. But you guys might have an idea anyway.
Well. A few weeks ago. It made that sound. And again. And again, and again. And kept doing it. The HD couldn't boot up.

Then. Almost my miracle. It booted up 2 days later. It was ok for about 2 days until I thought "heck, I need to chill and shut this thing down". I do.
And then it goes back to how it was.

What's wrong with my hard drive!? I'm heart broken

[raybro]

Just as soon as you are able, backup your data, photos and whatever else you do not want to lose. Do you have a secondary master drive or5 an external HDD?

Going by what you say, it is likely your drive is on it's way out, but first things first. Save what you can, to CD, DVD, or whatever media you have access to.Then we can begin looking at diagnosing your drive. Some info about the drive may be helpful. Do you know the brand name? The capacity?

Raybro

[BlackFrancis]

No such luck dude.
It wont boot at all.

It was an off-the-shelf computer. So I'm going to rack my brains to remember what model it was, and find it online to find the specs you need.

I HAD an external hard drive, but I broke that a month ago. lol My life is falling apart. Even my MP3 Player and BMX is gone to hell.

[raybro]

Bummer If you are comfortable inside your computer, you may want to give an old trick a tryout.

Remove the hard drive, place it inside a plastic ziplock bag and put it in the freezer overnight. Next day, remove it from the bag and reinstall it in the computer. That will sometimes allow the drive to run for a while. No guarantees, but what have you got to lose? I've had this work a couple of times, it just depends on just what the internal problem of the hard drive happens to be.

Raybro

[parasolution]

If you get back up and running, don't turn it off again. Keep it on, but be prepared to back-up your files as quickly as possible, either on DVD/CD or external drive.

If you have access to another computer and are comfortable with taking your bad drive out. Try making a disk image of the bad drive. I've had fairly good success making an image from a dying drive. You'll need imaging software like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. If one of the drives is either a Seagate or Maxtor, you can use MaxBlast 5 for free.

If you are successful in imaging the bad drive, you can then transfer the image to a new drive.

[chrome57]

Yes I would listen to all that good advice given by the previous comments. Your description is typical of a dying drive so back it up, or clone it while you can

[BlackFrancis]

Originally Posted by raybro

Bummer If you are comfortable inside your computer, you may want to give an old trick a tryout.

Remove the hard drive, place it inside a plastic ziplock bag and put it in the freezer overnight. Next day, remove it from the bag and reinstall it in the computer. That will sometimes allow the drive to run for a while. No guarantees, but what have you got to lose? I've had this work a couple of times, it just depends on just what the internal problem of the hard drive happens to be.

Raybro

That is some epic piece of advice. If I get home today, I'll give that a go.

Thanks guys. This REALLY means a lot to me. You just don't know.

My computer, she has a name you know... Dorothy... I cry every night at the thought that she's braindead. Her OS is practically her soul. And it's almost gone