Faulty Hard Drive - Click of death?

hey,
I have a hard drive (A WD3200JS) that upon booting, will spin up for a about three seconds, then emit a click, then spin down. It does this twice, then turns off for a while before starting over.

I'm pretty sure this means its dead, I'd just like a second opinion.

As well, is there anyway the data on this drive is recoverable? (using a software solution?). I highly doubt that too because it won't even spin let alone be seen in Windows.

Thanks

-Sean

 

Sean,

To me, it does sound like your drive is going bad. As far as getting the data off your drive, I recommend Active@File Recovery. I used it on a dying drive of mine and it worked great. They do have a demo version available so that you can see what is recoverable. Well worth the money if you end up buying it.

Mike

 

If it is not "spinning up ", you won't be able to read it. If the motors have "gone ", data recovery is very expensive.

Go to the WD website, look up the model and get the Lifeguard utilities for it. If Lifeguard can't see the HDD, I very much doubt anything apart from a data recovery company could get the data back for you.

Check if it is still under warranty at the WD website. If you can't get the data, they would still replace the drive if it was under warranty.

Matt

 

thx for the advice. nothing really worked though, I wasn't even detected in the BIOS, let alone any diagnostic program. I bought a new one.