How to identify a dead external hard drive?? How do I recover it?

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Canute Rolin Cardoza

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Jul 27, 2015
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I have a good old 500GB WD external drive(about 5 years). it was working fine until one day I found out it was making a clicking sound. this goes on for some time and it eventually gets detected but does not show up in My Computer. I tried with a different cable, only to have the clicks occur more frequently than with the original cable that came with it. I don't know but I'm assuming it is dead. I am no expert on this but i'm assuming. how do I actually know whether it is dead? and I haven't backed up everything so some things that are important to me are in there somewhere. I am dead scared that I may not be able to recover it. how do I recover it? I have heard of failures of the SATA bridge but the disk being fine. can it be related to my case?
 
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D_Know_WD
Hi there Canute Rolin Cardoza,

Sorry that you are having some issues with your drive. :(

Generally speaking, external drives make clicking sounds when 1)there is not enough power supplied and 2)there is some mechanical flaw with the HDD itself.

As there was some difference in the clicking pattern when you tried using a different cable, I guess it will not hurt to try using yet another one. There are these Y type of USB cables that provide more power.

In case the issue persists, then I would say your safest bet for recovering the data is to just contact a data recovery company.
What is the model of the drive? It is possible that it is hardware encrypted, so taking the drive out will not really help you to recover the data.

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Mattios

Mattios

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Jun 24, 2013
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It is almost certainly dead after you having it so long and the fact it has suddenly started clicking. It is unlikely that you'll be able to recover anything seeing as it is not detected by the OS. I suggest you pay for data recovery if the data is important.

You may wish to try opening the case to get to the drive itself, then plug it in as a normal internal drive. However the fact that it is clicking tells me/us that this is unlikely to work.

The more you try to access the drive, the more chance it will permanently erase the data.
 
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Canute Rolin Cardoza

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Jul 27, 2015
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it gets detected....i get the option of safely ejecting the hard disk. but i cannot see it being read. yeah, its common sense the more I try to access it the worse it becomes. I do not want to risk the data by opening it. I am ready to pay for the recovery. but are you positive that I could recover all the data back??
thanks @Mattios
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there Canute Rolin Cardoza,

Sorry that you are having some issues with your drive. :(

Generally speaking, external drives make clicking sounds when 1)there is not enough power supplied and 2)there is some mechanical flaw with the HDD itself.

As there was some difference in the clicking pattern when you tried using a different cable, I guess it will not hurt to try using yet another one. There are these Y type of USB cables that provide more power.

In case the issue persists, then I would say your safest bet for recovering the data is to just contact a data recovery company.
What is the model of the drive? It is possible that it is hardware encrypted, so taking the drive out will not really help you to recover the data.

I can't tell you for sure whether all the data is recoverable. I believe the guys at the data recovery company should be able to provide more information on that.

You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=YwEMCA

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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