oh, crap! i turned on my laptop (thinkpad) today to loud clicky sounds and a message that no disk could be found. so it seems i've killed my hard drive -- removing and gently turning it near my ear reveals somewhat of a rattle -- a busted drive head, perhaps? (keep in mind i have no idea what that means.)
IBM has a new drive on the way, but my, err, whole life is on there! sigh. well, at least there are a few unreplacable / hard-to-replace documents, photos, musical scrawlings, etc -- but i'm not sure if it's worth paying $500-2500 for data recovery. what do i do? i'm a bit of a packrat, and this is really bothering me, but maybe forking out the cash for recovery is silly.
i was also considering using this as a good reason to go out and get a powerbook. it's funny: when i had a working computer i didn't update my blog, and now that i don't have one, i'm finally updating.
okay, time to head to turntables on the hudson on the dyckman st (200 st) marina in inwood. whee.
Posted by cce at July 31, 2004 06:39 PM | TrackBackI think that clicking is normal. I used to have a couple of IBM travelstar hard drives and they both were perfectly healthy but clicked when they were turned off.... try popping it in another computer maybe. Or better yet, shell out $30 for one of those DIY firewire enclosures and see if you can get it to read that way.
Posted by: Mike at August 1, 2004 03:29 AMyo, chris... i just had almost the same thing happen to me. lost a ton of my writing from senior year, too so that really sucked. let me know if you have any success with getting your data back. i currently have a second guru at work on it, first one didn't have any luck.
Posted by: will at August 1, 2004 01:46 PMMike, I'm pretty sure rattling is /not/ normal, though. :)
Posted by: Julian at August 2, 2004 09:11 AMThe explanation I heard was that it was the head locking mechanism for laptop drives... This is also on hd4less.com's FAQ:
What is the strange rattling noise from the new drive I just purchased?
Many of the new drives have a passive locking mechanism holding the actuator in place, causing the drive to rattle when shaken. It is perfectly normal and no need to panic.
They're actually reputable -- I've bought several drives from them. Anyway, I guess the alternative is that the rattle is something else, which seems much worse. How 'bout an update anyway? Everyone's waiting with bated breath...
Posted by: Mike at August 2, 2004 01:10 PMyeah, the drive used to make lots of clicking sounds, but this time it was 3 or 4 loud, deliberate, err "frustrated mechanical" clicks at boot, like something inside was trying to do something and failing.
Posted by: cce at August 2, 2004 01:26 PMi feel as though i'm somewhat of an expert at frying hard drives, having fried three, i believe, in the last two years. $500 for recovery? I got my last fried hard drive recovered for $100 at gateway. Now i have one GIANT back-up disc with no folders or anything that might tell me what's on it. not sure it was worth the $100.
Posted by: mike's mom at August 2, 2004 06:21 PM