need to repair a HDD

[Gibb]

ok so i got a 160 GB hitachi drive (not the one i just bought online, that's a SATA 250 GB hitachi) and it's giving me a helluva lot of trouble. I was going to format and i got ready to move off all the files but then it started making this loud cyling clunking noise and not responding (crashing the computer by doing so). Right now i finally got the damn thing to boot up in another computer as a slave, and i got chkdsk /R /I running on it (the /R is supposed to repair damaged pieces and the /I is supposed to be less stressful on the drive, since the thing can hardly even boot up with the comp)

It takes about 3 hours to get through that chkdsk until it gets to a point where it says "Correcting errors in the Volume bitmap". After about 2 minutes of cyling crunching noise on that line, i'll get a BSOD.

Give it to me straight guys, did i just lose my 153 GB of anime and japanese music??? :mecry:

Drive was working perfectly fine yesterday until my friend tried to get it to boot up as slave to my new SATA drive. That wasnt working, but he tried about 1000 times, doing hard reboots every single time. I fear he may have fubed the drive by restarting it so many times.

[Plaster]

you should set it as a primary on a seperate channel and try to get what you can. It's pretty much toasty. sorry.

BTW, I'm pretty sure your friend didn't break it. If the constant power cylcling actually caused it it would mean there was a flaw there already. It was simply a matter of time before it gave out. The clunking sound is the motor shiting itself.

[Apoch003]

That noise means it's something mechanical... not software related. Follow Plasters advice and get what you can from it. Then toss it out.

[Apoch003]

OMG!!!! I MUST stop agreeing with Plaster! Somebody save me!

[Plaster]

OMG!!!! I MUST stop agreeing with Plaster! Somebody save me!

:evil:

[Trayal]

It's possible, if highly unlikely, that the PCB got zapped and is sending strange commands to the mechanical parts, resulting in the clunky noise. If you have or know somebody that has or can get a replacement drive of the exact same model, you may be able to swap the PCB from the good one to the bad one and recover your data.

Not likely, but if possible it's worth a shot. :)

[davesmeg]

Last time my drive made those noises was because the PSU wasn't powerfull enough.

Open the box and a spare. Run the slave drive off the PSU of the spare for now.

Thankfully I have a full tower with enough room to put an old AT PSU in and run the switch from the ATX supply. I have a very power hungry system.

[Gibb]

you should set it as a primary on a seperate channel and try to get what you can. It's pretty much toasty. sorry.

BTW, I'm pretty sure your friend didn't break it. If the constant power cylcling actually caused it it would mean there was a flaw there already. It was simply a matter of time before it gave out. The clunking sound is the motor shiting itself.


how does this primary channel thing work? Is that were you set it as Master but put it on a separate IDE from the one that's booting windows?

The HDD is well within warranty, since i only got it 3 or 4 months ago, but i'd have to have it sent off to get repaired, and have them send the cops to pick me up for copyright infringement :mecry:

[TsR-RareAir23]

Hmm had this similar problem recently. Only problem was when it happened to me it gave me very different issues on my comp that I have yet to figure out. The loud clunking sound you're mentioning usually is the hard drive's way of telling you that the drive is starting and stalling at a constant level of both actions. How I fixed the sound and got the hard drive working was a little trial and error. I unplugged my comp totally and then opened the case. I then reset the hard drive by pulling the IDE cable and Molex power connector out of the back of the hard drive, waiting 10 seconds or so and then plugging them back in. I then closed the case shut, plugged in the comp again, turned it on and voila I have a working hard drive again. Try that and see what results of it. Hope that helps. Out!

[Gibb]

well here's a slight overview of what i've done with the drive in the last couple weeks:

1.) The drive was original a single master with XP pro on a P4 1.6 GHz system.

2.) I upgraded the Motherboard to a P4R800-V Dlx with a 9100 IGP. Had to do a soft xp install cause my old install didnt like the new board.

3.) I got a P4 3.2 E and a Hitachi SATA 250 GB 7200 drive, so i took the ATA out and formatted the SATA with fresh XP install.

4.) I put the ATA back in the system, but i forgot to plug in the power cord lol (just had the IDE plugged in). I dunno if this could have fubed the drive or not, but i dunno how that could be that damaging.

5.) Got the system booted up, but XP would boot off the ATA drive, and the SATA drive would not be seen. No clunking problems at all yet.

6.) My friend tried every boot up combination in the BIOS but the SATA drive would not be found unless it was the only thing there.

7.) Friend takes ATA drive out and puts it in another computer as slave, works perfectly and i transfered a 10 GB folder over.

8.) Friend gets idea to put SATA drive into the comp with the other 2 drives. Clunking noise begins.

9.) SATA put back in it's computer, but ATA still has clunking noise as slave in 2nd computer.

10.) I take ATA and put it into 3rd computer, and XP sees that it's fubed and does a bootup chkdsk on it. It gets to the part that i explained before where it says "Correcting errors in the Volume bitmap" then reboots.

11.) I let system rest then boot up again. It gets into XP with the drive going through spurts of clunking noises, but not 100% of the time. I run chkdsk /F and it gives BSOD at same line as above.

12.) Try again later with chkdsk /F /I and it does the same thing.

I think the next thing i'll try is just booting it back up in it's old system as the primary drive to boot windows from and see if MAYBE it's a power issue. The 1st computer i've been mentioning has a 400w PS, whereas the 2nd one has a 350 and the 3rd has a 250. Probably a lost cause, but i have about 19 gigs of Japanese music alone on that drive, and i REALLY dont want to lose it. You cant even buy that stuff :mecry:

[Plaster]

how does this primary channel thing work? Is that were you set it as Master but put it on a separate IDE from the one that's booting windows?


it doesn't have to be the master, just put it by itself on an IDE channel seperate from all drives.

that way when you start to transfer the data to the other drive you'll get the highest possible throughput and increase the chances of getting more data before it locks up the machine again. You'll probably have the most trouble with the larger files.

Once you get all the data you can, try to format it and ship it off to IMB/Hitachi.

[Mole]

Whew, now I know to steer clear of Hitachi... I was fixed on buying a SATA drive from Hitachi. I think I'll stick with Maxtor, they have always been good to me.

[Gibb]

Whew, now I know to steer clear of Hitachi... I was fixed on buying a SATA drive from Hitachi. I think I'll stick with Maxtor, they have always been good to me.

Yeah, it certainly freaks me out, since i just bought a new hitachi SATA and was gonna put all the stuff from the old one onto it. I really think that i did something to the drive to screw it up tho, cause it was working perfectly up until that point. I didnt drop it, but something could have happened otherwise.