HDD not reading

[chriscool9]

Hello all,

I have a 2.5" HDD here that appears to have died. Now my friend told me that she dropped her laptop whilst it was running, and as such I'm guessing this is why it isn't working.
A bit more detail. Ive plugged the HDD into my Mac via USB and can hear that the disk actually spins. I can also hear the head trying to move, I think it may actually be moving as when I put it to my ear I can hear a pattern which I think is the arm/needle moving, then failing and moving back to its retracted position and then attempting the process again. After about 3 minutes of this process the arm seems to give up, and my Mac brings up an error saying 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer'. It may be worth noting that the problem disk is a NTFS formatted disk, and whilst it would normally be pointed out that this error message is as a result of me using Mac to read a Windows formatted disk this isn't the issue as my Mac is able to read all format variants.
So after the arm gives up after the 3 and this error is displayed I can now see the disk listed under Disk Utility with nearly all of its properties listed. So I know the disk isn't completely dead as it displays the Capacity, SN. However next to Partition Map Scheme it shows as 'unformatted' which it definitely isn't.
Has anyone please got any advice?
Thanks

Chris

[Calum]

Chris, long time no see.

Sounds to me like the drive has been damaged by the fall, so you're getting the dreaded "click of death" - the read head trying to move to where it needs to be, failing, trying again, failing, until after enough time to drive gives up.  The PCB itself seems to be fine, which is why it's reporting the capacity and serial number, but the "meat" of the drive - the head, and therefore probably the platters as the head can scratch them when it crashes - is toast.

[chriscool9]

Hey Calum,

 Yea I know, I made the jump to OS X so I've been on a more Mac based forum.
 Anyway, thanks for the information bud. I feared that this could well be the case. I think i'll end up suggesting to her we get a new HDD and install W7 onto it.
 Bit of a shame really as she has a lot of photos from her travelling on it, as well as her Uni work (fortunate that she wont need this Uni work anymore as its end of term). She also didn't have any of it backed up.

Thanks for your input and diagnosis mate

Chris

[Calum]

Ah, you've been taken by the dark side
That is indeed a shame, you could try taking it to a data recovery place but I fear it won't be cheap as it's a case of physical damage rather than just data being overwritten or corrupted, or even a dead PCB, all of which are potentially fixable.
I always suggest, especially for laptops, a cloud backup service.  They may not be perfect, and it's always a good idea to have a separate physical backup too, but they are easily accessible and can be constantly running so that as soon as something is changed or a new file is written, it's also backed up online.  Perhaps something to look into in the future, though I appreciate it's none too helpful right now!

[chriscool9]

Hey bud,

Just a little update. Fortunately I managed to recover a quite sizeable amount of photo's from the disk. I reckon what you said is pretty much bang on as I think the platter has been scratched, and when the head gets to this position, it keeps failing, thankfully a fair amount of her images seem to of been stored before the position where this scratch this.
 As for the cloud backup service, I think you've got a very good point. I think I may suggest to her Dropbox. I know on my laptop I have multiple folders synced to my DB, and ill probably look at something similar for her also.
Thanks for the assistance matey!

Chris

[Calum]

Ah nice, glad to hear you managed to at least get a good amount of the data back
Dropbox is worth a look, for sure, it's a limited amount of storage space initially but it works well.  Tresorit is one I use, offers 5GB free which isn't bad and it's all encrypted too if that's of interest (I got 50GB free a while back off a promotion).
My thinking is that laptop users especially don't always have a portable HDD or USB stick to back up to, and if you're on the move they can easily get lost or damaged along with the laptop, so cloud storage just provides an extra layer of backup.

[patio]

Good to seeya again Chris...where ya been ? ?

[chriscool9]

Calum,
Thanks for that. Ill absolutely look into Tresorit!

Patio,
Yea thanks bud, likewise! Like I say, Im an Apple fanboi now and have been a little more involved with a Mac forum Most of my time however has been taken up with Uni work, dissertations etc, was all worth it in the end though as I found out I got a Distinction which I'm pretty over the moon about! Whats new with you buddy?

Think ill make more of an effort to come back here every now and then!

Chris

[patio]

Good to hear all is good...it's been awhile.