Dying Hard Disk (need your help mga gurus ;p)

[Der FüHRER]

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here's my story:

well my hard disk died (or is dying) . i just bought a new memory stick and replaced my old one with smaller capacity. i decided to test it by leaving the PC on for about 6 hours while downloading a movie via torrent. i have been doing this for awhile and i haven't encountered any problems (i'm not blaming the new memory stick for this).

anyway here's what happened: i woke up and the dl still wasn't finished (bout 85%) , the PC was also running fine. i decided to check my disk capacity and noticed that only 800mb in the one i was downloading the movie into. btw i have 2 hard drives, this one does not contain the os (a 1-year old old maxtor drive, the one with the OS is a western digital that is 3 years old). so i decided to clean up some old movies and when i clicked the recycle bin to empty it, the PC froze and i hear the clicking sound. so i restarted my PC and at first, it wouldn't recognize the slave disk (the maxtor one). so i turned it off for awhile and switched to another IDE slot. well it recognized it again after i turned it on, but as windows xp was booting up, it would freeze again and the clicking sound goes off. sometimes it got past through the point when checkdisk starts checking the partition form the maxtor drive but it would freeze again. i was running late for work and i decided to leave it for now and try and fix it when i get home later.

this has actually happened before last summer; i would hear the clicking noise and the pc would freeze. i thought that maybe the hd was overheating or something so i removed the floppy drive which hasn't been used in years (it was located in between the 2 hard drives, sikit kaau) and opened the front side of the casing where the floppy was located in order to let some air through. well it worked, i never experienced the clicking sound again (until now).


so here are my questions:


1. which among the hard drives is dying?

i was thinking it is the maxtor one because its the same one that caused the problem last summer, i would only hear the click when i'm accessing my maxtor drive. also, my pc froze this morning while i was accessing the maxtor drive. however, the pc also froze (and clicks) while windows was starting up after i restarted it, so i guess the wester digital might also be a suspect.

2. can it still be fixed or can the data be still be retrieved?

3. would buying a usb hard disk enclosure help in data recovery?

i have a laptop and i'm thinking of buying an enclosure so i can back up some files from my drives..but i also heard that usb enclosures aren't really that reliable ;p anyway is it advisable to spend on it?

4. would a hard disk cooler help?

since i concluded that heat might be the cause of the clicking noise last summer, will buying a hard disk cooler (like those from cdr king) help fix this? i'm thinking twice bout this because i don't want to make unnecessary expenditures, gadaginot sad ta karon panahona ;p




sensya na for the somewhat long post..but from reading stuff here i know nga naa jud mga expert sa mga istoryans dri bout these things..hehe. as much as possible i don't want to have to buy a new hard drive because i'm saving up for a new pc.. i'd appreciate any help/comments bout this. thanks

[butitoy]

whats the specific models of ur hdd bro?

[EntrePinoy]

try buying new ide cables basin emo na cable problem

[Der FüHRER]

@butitoy: check lng nako unya pag uli nako bro

@entrepinoy: thanks try nako na, cheap ra man cguro ang ide cables ba..

[EntrePinoy]

yup mga 30petot

[harveyboy2007]

Brad...try raw og check sa imo power supply nga connection kay basin naay fluctuation sa signal..then ang imo sad nga IDE cable..

Kanang magtingog nga sa imo hard disk..posible baya na nga hapit na na mu bigay..i suway daw og scan if naay bay mga bad blocks...

[Der FüHRER]

mu boot pa diay akng pc bro..pag tang2x nako sa akng back-up disk kay ni boot na cya og sakto.

@butitoy maxtor diamond plus9 ni cya, covered pa sa warranty. ipadala nlng ngali nako ni pero try sa nakog recover akng data..

[ralpryan]

try sa ilis ug IDE cable bro nya try to check ang power cable sad kung hugot bha. B4 nimo ipa cover ang warranty

[Der FüHRER]

hrmm ipa replace nlng gyud nako, gi try na man nako ang ide cable sa pikas na drive na working dli man gihapon.


mga bro naa moy idea asa ko makakuha og static bag/clamshell packaging para sa harddisk? covered pa man gud cya sa warranty then naa na koy RMA, pero wala na ang static bag pagpalit nako. ang maxtor man gud k wlay plastic clamshell container para sa ilang harddisk

[Der FüHRER]

waaa mga bossing ni work pa cyag gi gamitan nakog usb enclosure...ambot lng kung magdugay pa ni. pero so far wala man gatingog...