3TB WD Caviar Green issues

[MirnesT]

My drive won't mount on my pc, instead it keeps making this noise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rQdHHUR3Co

Does anyone know what might be wrong with it, and if it is fixable..
This was the drive from my My Book Live NAS (XFS filesystem I believe) so I have a lot of data I wish to recover..

 

[canadian69]

Sounds pooched. RMA time. Heads sound stuck. you could try sticking it in a plastic bag and putting it in the freezer for a few hours and then retry it, but I doubt that will work, if it does you may have enough time to get your data off, otherwise I think a data recovery lab is your only option. I have had so many WD problems lately it's like catching.

 

[MirnesT]

Sounds pooched. RMA time. Heads sound stuck. you could try sticking it in a plastic bag and putting it in the freezer for a few hours and then retry it, but I doubt that will work, if it does you may have enough time to get your data off, otherwise I think a data recovery lab is your only option. I have had so many WD problems lately it's like catching.

Okay, thanks for your fast response.. I'm not comfortable with trying to put it in the freezer so I'm probably gonna look into recovery labs, although I doubt I can afford it
It's funny you say that, about the WD problems, because this happend about 4-5 days ago, and now 2 days ago my My Passport had a corrupt MFT - I did manage to recover all the files, but there's no folder structure - so I'm really frustrated with my WD drives..

 

[canadian69]

Me too, having lots of probs with the passports these days, I have two dead ones on my hands right now. I think I will go with Seagate drives and buy my external enclosures separately from now on.

For the freezer trick, wrap the drive in newspaper and put it in a zip lock bag with all the air sucked out. It wont hurt the drive, but sometimes overcomes PCB heat related problems, it's a long shot.

 

[MirnesT]

Me too, having lots of probs with the passports these days, I have two dead ones on my hands right now. I think I will go with Seagate drives and buy my external enclosures separately from now on.

For the freezer trick, wrap the drive in newspaper and put it in a zip lock bag with all the air sucked out. It wont hurt the drive, but sometimes overcomes PCB heat related problems, it's a long shot.

Yeah, I'm also considering changing to another brand, I don't trust WD drives anymore, which is a shame because I used be quite satisfied with their drives..
The worst part is that I can't remember how much of the data is important - some of the data on the drive I can live without, but some of it I really need.. How long do you suggest it stays in the freezer?

 

[canadian69]

A couple hours, just enough to cool it right down and then plug it in and see if there is any change, be ready to off load your data on the remote chance it works.

 

[MirnesT]

I tried cooling it down for 2 hours, but still no change, same sound from the harddrive.. although both my Mac and my PC seemed to find the disk, they didn't manage to initialize it, while a VM install of Ubuntu didn't seem to find it at all.
While trying to scan the disk with UFS Explorer in Windows it couldn't find any filesystem, but that might be, as your initial assumption, because of the head being stuck..
Anyways, thanks for your help - I'm new to this forum, is there a button somwhere to say 'kudos, you had the right answer'? - I'll try and talk to a recovery lab, my insurance might cover the expenses *crosses fingers*

 

[canadian69]

It was a long shot, too bad it didn't work. You should be able to select best answer on your end, which is appreciated, wish I could have done more, good luck with your insurer. (let us know if that works BTW).