Quite new HDD stopped functioning

I have a Hitachi Deskstar 250GB SATA hard disk. Its only 12 months + and it just went dead, without any warnings or signs.

It all happened last week. I turned on my pc and once the Vista Login screen came up, my mouse could not move, nothing could be done. So i reset the pc.

Now each time I turn on the PC, at the beginning it detects the CD rom drive then says "detecting Sata 1..." after a minute or so it says "error on Sata 1 Press <R> to continue"

The HDD would make a "chick..chick" sound every half second. So i unplugged it and shook it out of anger and now i can hear some metal spinning each time I shake it and when i boot up, i hear the similar sound u hear when the DVD rom is reading a Disc - continuous fast spinning sound.

Can anything be done to save the data?

you could take it to a data recovery place, if the data's THAT important. But it will cost at least $100.

Unfortunate but not uncommon. If the drive spins up then the data can most likely be recovered - at least some of it.

I have a fairly good track record of data recovery and the trick to recovering data from clicking drives is to stick it in the freezer (yes, the freezer) for about two hours, take it out, stick it in an enclosure and use some linux livecd like SysRescueCD to attempt a data recovery. You can usually get a drive mounted and start pulling data to another location before the drive warms up and begins to fail again. I also find that holding the drive at an angle will sometimes buy you some time - sometimes a fair amount of time. Just yesterday I pulled a 38G sparsefile from an HFS+ partition on a drive that was clicking, thumping, tapping and squealing while holding it in my hand ever so steady!

A dead drive, not spinning at all, will cost $500 +/- to have data recovered. See Drive Savers.

A drive in the condition of yours, unless you shook it to death, would cost approx $100-$200 in my shop to pull data.

Scott
http://www.bridger-syscomm.com

The data is not important but its troublesome trying to source it all over again (music/video files)

What if i buy the same model HDD, take the disc from the old HDD and put it in the new HDD. Can this be done?

Only in a clean room. Once you break the seal on the HD, any speck of dust can ruin your day.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Only in a clean room. Once you break the seal on the HD, any speck of dust can ruin your day.

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they aren't quite that delicate, but i wouldn't leave one open for an extended period. Besides which if you hear stuff flopping loose in there it's as likely to be a broken platter as anything else. At the very least, it's probably scratched it to uselessness.

They're delicate enough. Once you open the case it's just a matter of probablility from that point. You should at least be aware of the potential for contamination and take steps to minimize it.

If you have ever opened up a HDD driver before the arm and head are such a pain in the arse to get around the platters, and one slip of a screw driver and bam, your data's gone.

The freezer trick is actually quite a good idea, done it once or twice before myself. For future reference to UK based viewers, I used to sell professional lab recovery for HDDs, at &#163;700 its only for the rich / desperate.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

They're delicate enough. Once you open the case it's just a matter of probablility from that point. You should at least be aware of the potential for contamination and take steps to minimize it.

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I see your point, but I have a Dyson hoover, no dust in sight :D

"So i unplugged it and shook it out of anger..."

was the gyro still spinning when you shook it?

bid story - long, long, ago... i was a system's programmer for a large mainframe. one day i was on the computer floor and the operator got a mount message for one of the removable disk drives. when it was mounted you had to hit enter on the console, so he asked me to hit enter. i told him it wasn't accepting it, so he moved it. same results. after about the fifth drive i walked over and heard what the problem was. the disk had been scratched and was methodically destroying drives, heads everywhere. i don't remember what the bill was, but it was big.

I dont think it was spinning cos i opened the CPU case only after 5 minutes.

I'll give the freezer thing a try.
Only now I discovered that you need a special screwdriver to open those screws on the HDD.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

They're delicate enough. Once you open the case it's just a matter of probablility from that point. You should at least be aware of the potential for contamination and take steps to minimize it.

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This is kind of a fairy tale introduced by big recovery companies.
If you do it in a fairly clean-air room you might get a few dust particles on it, but they won't damage the data, because as soon as the disk begins spinning they are thrown off the platter into one of those filter-channels.
Though what ILMV said is quite probable to happen if you don't have the experience.

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Originally Posted by TheBigB

This is kind of a fairy tale introduced by big recovery companies.
If you do it in a fairly clean-air room you might get a few dust particles on it, but they won't damage the data, because as soon as the disk begins spinning they are thrown off the platter into one of those filter-channels.
Though what ILMV said is quite probable to happen if you don't have the experience.

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that was my point when i said they weren't THAT delicate. But i still wouldn't attempt it myself. I've personally thrashed a hard drive as well and it was the exact same symptoms as his. I made the mistake of hammering on a mounting bracket without taking the drive out first. Live and learn.

oh personal irony... MY new hard drive which is about three months old crapped out on me. The place i bought it from was nice enough to mirror it for me.

Edit: I take that back. The place is nice in that they do RMEs for you, but the mirroring service was going to cost me $80. They didn't tell me there was going to be any charge up front, and i didn't want it if it was going to cost that much. I got my new drive back yesterday.

Try any of those suggestions and see if they work:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=551377

Lord Orwell,

Just out of curiosity, what model of hard disk was it? Any known cause for the failure?

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Originally Posted by freeze_sr

Lord Orwell,

Just out of curiosity, what model of hard disk was it? Any known cause for the failure?

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it was a seagate. 500mb. It's probably going to be the last 3 1/2 inch drive i ever buy. 2 1/2 drives use less power, are the same price, and work at about the same data transfer speed.

The drive was making clicking noises ever since i've owned it. I suspect the controller chip went bad on it, as it was no longer recognized in any computer i hooked it to.

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

it was a seagate. 500mb. It's probably going to be the last 3 1/2 inch drive i ever buy. 2 1/2 drives use less power, are the same price, and work at about the same data transfer speed.

The drive was making clicking noises ever since i've owned it. I suspect the controller chip went bad on it, as it was no longer recognized in any computer i hooked it to.

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The quest for smallness. I believe that may be what high technology is all about. Make it bigger and, "Good bye..." Make it smaller and, "Hello!"

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Originally Posted by Code Doc

The quest for smallness. I believe that may be what high technology is all about. Make it bigger and, "Good bye..." Make it smaller and, "Hello!"

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my concern is actually power usage, but i actually have an application for a smaller drive that has a 3 1/2 in it currently that barely fits in there and i believe is not getting enough air flow for cooling.