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vja4him · Dec 21, 2009, 09:22 AM

My 500GB external hard drive (Hitachi DeskStar) crashed! The blue light comes on, and I can hear the hard drive spinning, then sounds like it's stuck, or clicking ...

Same thing happens to the internal HD on my iBook G4. Sometimes the internal HD works, sometimes not.

I desparately need to find someway to attempt to either fix the external 500GB HD, or recover the files. The 500GB was my main HD, and I have so much very important data that I need to recover (no backups!).

I have years of research (lots of family history), thousands of pictures (many very old), my personal journals that I've been keeping for years, personal information, letters, documents, family videos, and all of my e-mail.

Somebody was telling me that there is special software that will recognize the HD, and allow you to recover the files.

What would you recommend? At the present I have no money to do anything, but will save up for the recovery software. My uncle is getting me a new hard drive, so I'll have that to back up the files when I have the recovery software ...

ibook_steve · Dec 21, 2009, 11:22 AM

No backup for such important files?

First try Disk Utility in the Utilities folder (accessible when booting from an OS install disk if your internal drive is dead, too) then try Disk Warrior if DU doesn't work.

If this stuff is that important to you, it's no time to skimp on paying for recovery software. If you can't get software right away (and even if you can) you need to stop using these disks immediately to avoid further damage.

Steve

vja4him · Dec 21, 2009, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

No backup for such important files?

First try Disk Utility in the Utilities folder (accessible when booting from an OS install disk if your internal drive is dead, too) then try Disk Warrior if DU doesn't work.

If this stuff is that important to you, it's no time to skimp on paying for recovery software. If you can't get software right away (and even if you can) you need to stop using these disks immediately to avoid further damage.

Steve

I used to back up religiously, but haven't backed up regularly for about two years! I've never needed back ups, but was going to start soon .... I gave my other external HD to my son, or otherwise I would have had the extra HD for backing up.

I tried Disk Warrior 4, but the broken HD didn't show up in the Disk Warrior window.

Somebody recommended swapping the broken HD to another case I have ....

Does anyone use Data Rescue 3, or Drive Genius? Someone recommend either one of those for trying to recover the files from the broken HD.

mduell · Dec 21, 2009, 01:39 PM

Simon · Dec 21, 2009, 02:09 PM

Something tells me you'll never ever stop backing up again.

I'm glad I learned that lesson when I was about 18 and didn't have many (or important) files (actually I only had a 5 MB HDD at the time).

Doc HM · Dec 21, 2009, 02:58 PM

With the clicking noise indicating a mechanical failure you are going to struggle to get any software to recover your drive as these are designed to work with damaged drives and/or corrupted data but an actual working drive. No amount of software can persuade a physically broken drive to work again.

Data recovery houses will try to place your drive platters into a matching drive case. For this to work the replacement mechanism must be from a drive by the same manufacturer, the same size and running the same software/firmware on the drive. You can't just pop the platters from one drive into another case. In any case this really needs to be done in a clean workshop as the tiniest speck of dust can render the drive useless (er). expect to pay for this service, though most places charge a small look fee and only charge if they can recover actual data.

reader50 · Dec 21, 2009, 03:32 PM

Like others say, don't use the hard drive until you are ready to recover. Until you have a bigger hard drive ready to copy to.

In Disk Utility, is the drive seen at all? If it appears as a hardware icon but won't mount, then Data Rescue might be able to help. If it is not visible at all in Disk Utility, you have a hardware problem. You could try the below trick - it has sometimes worked:

Assuming this is a borderline hardware failure, place the hard drive in a cold location. Outside in the snow. Or in your freezer. Run the cables past/under the door. Give it a half hour to reach the low temperature, then try to power it up. It may mount and run for awhile - copy like crazy if it does.

If it doesn't mount while cold, bring it back in and don't try to power it up for a few hours. Let it return to room temperature, then give it more hours for any condensation to evaporate. And save up for data recovery services - they are pricey.

CharlesS · Dec 21, 2009, 05:14 PM

Does your hard drive show up in the USB (or FireWire) section of Apple System Profiler? It's possible that the issue could be in the enclosure rather than the hard drive itself. Unfortunately, if the drive is making clicking noises, it's quite likely that it could in fact be the drive, but if the data on that drive is this important, it might be worth a try at least to take the drive out, put it in another enclosure, and try it there. Since you are going to be getting a new external drive anyway, you might as well get the enclosure now, and even if it doesn't help in this instance it will still be useful as the external drive later (as you can just get an internal drive and put it in it).