Adam Levermore, my “Save Hiatus” partner and the creator of such excellent artwork as the “How to Spot a Cylon” poster, the Serenity travel posters, various Can’t Stop the Serenity artwork, the Little Damn Heroes designs and many more, just had his hard drive freeze up. With, naturally, a lot of irreplaceable artwork and working files still on it.
From his increasingly frantic tweets:
It’s a Maxtor drive, w/ both USB and FireWire inputs. It’s making a sound like a ticking wristwatch (both in terms of rhythm and volume)
One possible issue: Power requirement is 12V / 3A, but the supply that’s connected is 12V / 2.5A. Could this be a contributing factor?
The sound doesn’t change at all, regardless of whether I’m using the USB or the FireWire, or if neither is plugged in.
Finally, it’s not making any sort of winding-up, spinning or whooshing noises I usually associate with a working hard drive.
HALP?
He’s tried most of the urban legend fixes — freezing, etc — but he could really use the help or extremely discounted services of an experienced data-retrieval techie. Any fans out there with suggestions? Contact him or me if you can help out. Thanks!
The worst thing of all is the ticking noise. This means that it tries to read the bootsector but it can’t. I had the same thing with a Seagate and a Westerndigital. One was the back up of the other. IN THE SAME WEEK. Most probably there are companies that might try to save your data but it costs a fortune. Mine could not be saved. Still they can check your disk for free. Most of them do. Try it, but the worst thing is that little freaking ticking noise. Means it can’t read the surface. Maybe a scratch or something.
First I would get either the correct power supply or a new external case for it or install it as a slave in a desktop system.
If any of these help stop the clicking, get all the files off of it and on to a new HD.
If your having problems accessing the drive with your current OS, try a Ubuntu Live CD to access the drive and move the files. This has worked for me when the drive was still accessible, but I couldn’t see it under my current OS.
Clicking is usually the sign that the drive is dying, not a good sound.
Good Luck!