Clicking external hard drives. Any hope?
 

I have a stack of failed hard drives, a couple I wasn't able to backup. Ive seen a couple videos on youtube of people taking them apart and getting them to work again enough to back them up. Anyone ever try this, and did you or did you not succeed?

If I send it off, does anyone know of a good company or have used one yourself to recover your data? I know the prices used to be pretty expensive. There seems to be a lot of them on google, but it would be nice to hear about some experiences from people here, especially since one of my drives holds a ton of content.

I've heard a few guys freeze the drive for 24hrs - then get one more boot on the drive enough to data dump.

I've got a clicking WD external...haven't tried frezing it yet.

Pray to Jesus for forgiveness and he will HEAL your Hard Drives.

I did that once. Put it in the freezer in a bag of rice (to prevent dampness) Took it out and it booted OK for a copy

I heard from a friend that he knows a guy who's friend told him that a guy he knows put his failing hard drive in the microwave for like 10 seconds and it booted right up.

Yeah you can try either the freezer trick or in the microwave. What that does is un-stick the flywheel thingy that's producing the 'click of death' you are hearing.

Other than that you gotta send it off to a lab. There's a company here in NYC who will look at the drive for $60 to determine if it can be salvaged via a lab. If yes that $60 goes toward the $125 minimum the lab charges. If not, good-bye $60. LOL

Also: WD (Western Digital) is known for the 'click of death'. So that's why I switched to Toshiba years ago and have never had a problem now. That, plus multiple (Toshiba) backups. :)

I did the freezer trick once because the data I lost wasn't important anyway. Was able to get 1 drive to show me a list of files but that was it. Wouldn't let me copy them.

I always just spray the hell out of them with WD40 and then throw a couple of wraps of duct tape around them.

Fixes fucking anything :thumbsup

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big sub woofer magnets will suck the data off the bad drives :2 cents:

If you can get past this guy's annoying accent...the video's not bad.

Yep. That is the same video I watched. I'm wondering if anyone here has tried it.

I appreciate to helpful responses. I expected there to be a few assholes to reply but didn't think one of them would have been someone I sent traffic to.

I also tried the freezer trick once, didn't work at all. Unless you pay some data recovery pros, I don't think there's much hope.