Solved Any way to save data on failing external drive?

[FusionTecg]

I managed to get the most important/some mid-level importance data off in time, it seems to be able to get data off again, but ultimately I may have to bring out the freezer trick and a burner A8 laptop I cant get to work right. (Reason being, condensation in the drive can make your USB port/whatever port fry. I have an A8 laptop on hand I suspect has a CPU issue, but would still work enough to boot a basic Linux OS relatively stably for a while and copy files off)

Enough said, is there any way I can avoid using that without going to a data recovery place? Its not important enough data for me to warrant that.

 

[SpywareDr]

You usually need something running an Operating System capable of doing what you need to get done.

If the drive is still working, you could try a standalone drive duplicator: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=drive+duplicator&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

[bassfisher6522]

Yep....+! for those. I use the Wavlink Red....best $25 purchase I've ever made.

 

[FusionTecg]

You usually need something running an Operating System capable of doing what you need to get done.

If the drive is still working, you could try a standalone drive duplicator: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=drive+duplicator&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

The drive.. well, its working..ish

It will work, then make click sounds, and it dosent work while it does that, then works again, then more click-sounds, and if you transfer anything too large at once it results in that. Obviously fail.

Normally, I would have 2 backups, and I did, but one small problem. The second one was.. hopelessly lost.

 

[SpywareDr]

A repeated clicking sound often means the heads are having trouble zeroing in on Track 0 ... which is not good.

Hard drives are mechanical, with spinning platters and reciprocating heads. Moving parts cause wear. And when that wear becomes great enough, the hard drive can no longer do the job it was designed to do. In other words, it's simply worn out and needs to be replaced.

 

[FusionTecg]

A repeated clicking sound often means the heads are having trouble zeroing in on Track 0 ... which is not good.

Hard drives are mechanical, with spinning platters and reciprocating heads. Moving parts cause wear. And when that wear becomes great enough, the hard drive can no longer do the job it was designed to do. In other words, it's simply worn out and needs to be replaced.

Yeah, I didnt know on the Track 0, and I know what issues hard drives can have. Its an obviously failing drive, I knew that the moment I heard the clicking. Its really only half-working, so im pretty much screwed over on this, and it actively gets worse if I try and copy off of it. I just lost my second backup, so thats partially why im screwed over. :/

 

[SpywareDr]

If you 'gotta have' whatever is on it, you could try Ontrack (http://www.ontrack.com).

 

[FusionTecg]

If you 'gotta have' whatever is on it, you could try Ontrack (http://www.ontrack.com).

I have the 30 or so gigs of important stuff off of it, so I dont HAVE to have the data on it, so its not the hugest loss. But I still wanna see if I can get it off, thanks for the reccomendation.

 

[SpywareDr]

The hard drive uses Track 0 as a starting position for the reciprocating arm mechanism that holds the read/write heads over the platters. It then uses a stepper motor to count from there to precisely position the heads where they need to be out over the spinning platters. As the data (or empty space) passes under the heads data is read (written or erased). If written or erased, the drive then makes a note, in an index of sorts, of exactly where each bit of data is now located (or erased) on each platter.

As you can imagine I'm sure, in order to do all of this successfully this entire hard drive kit must be working as closely to precision as possible. When one little piece starts to fail -- whether due to defect, damage or *-wear-* -- the hard drive can simply no longer do what it was designed to do.

 

[FusionTecg]

The hard drive uses Track 0 as a starting position for the reciprocating arm mechanism that holds the read/write heads over the platters. It then uses a stepper motor to count from there to precisely position the heads where they need to be out over the spinning platters. As the data (or empty space) passes under the heads data is read (written or erased). If written or erased, the drive then makes a note, in an index of sorts, of exactly where each bit of data is now located (or erased) on each platter.

As you can imagine I'm sure, in order to do all of this successfully this entire hard drive kit must be working as closely to precision as possible. When one little piece starts to fail -- whether due to defect, damage or *-wear-* -- the hard drive can simply no longer do what it was designed to do.

The external drive was from 2009, and had alot of time it was powered on, so it was pretty worn down probably.

 

[SpywareDr]