External HDD problem.

[eneville]

1) get disk model/part number
2) find someone who can sell you the disk model/part
3) open old and new disk. move platters to new disk housing

Just don't do it in a dust room, or if you do, have a good can of air, don't get condensate on the platters.

In the worst case, if you do get contaminates in there, you'll probably have enough life in the new disk to do a complete disk image copy.

 

[Oshi]

this is probably not relevant but a while back i had a problem with an external drive
(son pulled cable out when PC was writing to it) and it was also churning away but wasn't being read by my PC had a look under
Control Panel>Computer management>Disk Managment and the drive was
showing as unallocated if i remember,although it was showing under USB connections,

Turned out that the partition table was corrupt,sorry can't remember the software
i used but a after it was fixed it works fine ever since,

 

[eneville]

this is probably not relevant but a while back i had a problem with an external drive
(son pulled cable out when PC was writing to it) and it was also churning away but wasn't being read by my PC had a look under
Control Panel>Computer management>Disk Managment and the drive was
showing as unallocated if i remember,although it was showing under USB connections,

Turned out that the partition table was corrupt,sorry can't remember the software
i used but a after it was fixed it works fine ever since,

I'm glad to hear that it's working now. There's a couple of programs that I can think of that do data restoration, I'd typically use something called 'testdrive' but I think Norton Disk Doctor can do similar jobs (or at least, used to).

If the power was pulled though, at worst all I can think would happen is some temp files and disk cache may not be cleared up under normal conditions. If you're messing around with things like partition resizes then much worse things may happen.

Still, all fun and games. Most important thing to remember is to keep backups on another computer, or mail to a remote place like a gmail.com account.

 

[quattrojames]

Still waiting on the cable, fingers crossed for tomorrow.

 

[quattrojames]

The cable came and I've plugged it in as follows:

The drive seems quite noisy, but thats perhaps because it's not hidden away in its metal box. BUT the laptop still doesn't seem to be reading it. I've looked in My Computer but it isn't listed as it usually would be. Is there anyway to manually search for the drive?

 

[antdad]

How many USB ports do you have?

 

[quattrojames]

4 - will try another.

 

[quattrojames]

Doesn't seem to work on any of the 4 ports.

The tone of the 'chuntering' alters when the usb cable is plugged in, and the laptop chimes when I pull the usb cable out.

 

[antdad]

Is it being identified? Have a look in device manager under hard disk.

 

[quattrojames]

I'm thinking not?

 

[antdad]

I don't think that's good news unless someone else has got any ideas.

 

[quattrojames]

Possible update:?

I unplugged and replugged and wiggled everything, and while I can't find the HDD through My Computer, it does (I think?) show up through Device Manager.

The status told me the device is working properly :?

 

[Audiolab]

SATA is not hot plug, although USB can be connected and disconnected while the O/S is running the HDD cant; having said that it sounds as if it is buggered.

Only suggestion is to leave the drive connected and reboot, this will cause Windows to find it and search for the driver, you can do this manually but a reboot of the O/S is simpler. (Unless you have already tried this).

 

[quattrojames]

I've rebooted the laptop several times and it makes no difference, the driver isn't being read and just sits there giving off an audible 'click' every second and a half or so. Sounds like bad news then

Can anyone confirm that the USB device listed under Disc Drives is definitely the HDD?

 

[eneville]

I've rebooted the laptop several times and it makes no difference, the driver isn't being read and just sits there giving off an audible 'click' every second and a half or so. Sounds like bad news then

Can anyone confirm that the USB device listed under Disc Drives is definitely the HDD?

That is the disk, the STNNNNNN is the serial model number of the Seagate drive (sometimes re-branded as a Sun/HP or other OEM disk), but I can confirm that looks like a Seagate model number.

If the disk's recognised by the OS then it should appear under, right click 'My Computer', 'Mange'. Then, click 'Computer', 'Storage', 'Disk management'. Your Seagate drive should be listed there.

The clicking tells me that the likely reason the disk is listed in the devices is because the electronics of the disk still function perfectly well, however something mechanical is preventing the disk to be read. One course of action may be to exchange the platters with another drive casing that matches the Seagate part number. I hope that I am wrong, sometimes I've come across disks that occasionally click, but if it's doing it all the time and this is something you've not experienced from the disk before then it could be fatal, but I'd try everything before giving up on it!

 

[antdad]

Unless you have any other storage devices plugged in besides the main hd it should be.

Is it a Vista laptop?

Go to control panel/administrative tools/computer management/storage/disk management

Find the hard drive and right click and if you can open "change drive letter and path" and assign it a letter and reboot.

It might work but if it's clicking away I think there is a mechanical fault.

Also try accessing with a different operating system.