500GB External Drive not showing up anywhere

[Reggod]

Hi,

So I went to turn on my Acer Aspire V5-531 which I hadn't used for a couple months yesterday, and to make a long story short the computer failed to boot due to an apparently failing hard drive. I removed the 500 GB Hitachi HTS54505OA7E380 and plugged it into a caddy to try to get the data off it. Sure enough, when I plugged it in, the drive clicked several times before seeming to catch and work. Windows went about getting the needed drivers, and successfully installed them. However, the drive did not show up in My Computer. I went into Disc Management which immediately told me to initialize the drive. When I tried to do so it returned a Cyclic Redundancy error. I ran the HGST Drive Fitness Test which returned a Quick Test pass. I tried several recovery programs including Acronis Disc Manager, (which hung at "processing"); all seemed to see the drive as having no partitions. I unplugged the drive to check for any physical damage, and now when plugged in, my PC won't recognize it at all. I really need the data off that drive and would greatly appreciate any help!

 

[dstarr3]

The clicking suggests it's a mechanical failure, but the other errors suggest it's a controller failure. I would plug it in again, see if you can feel or hear the platters spinning up. If they spin up, especially quietly, that's certainly a good sign.

One thing you can try is replacing the controller yourself. You will need to buy an identical, working hard drive and follow a guide like this:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Successful-Hard-Drive-Controller-Replacement/

But if that doesn't work, and/or if it is a mechanical problem, then at this point really all you can do to get the data back is send the drive in to data recovery specialists.

 

[USAFRet]

"Cyclic Redundancy error." generally indicated a dead drive.

If you can't make the OS recognize it, then it is unlikely you will be able to get any data off it.

Try it with a Linux LiveCD.
No installation needed. Just create one, and boot off that.
If this doesn't work, it's dead.

 

[Reggod]

"Cyclic Redundancy error." generally indicated a dead drive.

If you can't make the OS recognize it, then it is unlikely you will be able to get any data off it.

Try it with a Linux LiveCD.
No installation needed. Just create one, and boot off that.
If this doesn't work, it's dead.

Thanks for your reply. What version of Linux LiveCD would you recommend? Also, how much do you think hard drive recovery would cost?

 

[USAFRet]

"Cyclic Redundancy error." generally indicated a dead drive.

If you can't make the OS recognize it, then it is unlikely you will be able to get any data off it.

Try it with a Linux LiveCD.
No installation needed. Just create one, and boot off that.
If this doesn't work, it's dead.

Thanks for your reply. What version of Linux LiveCD would you recommend? Also, how much do you think hard drive recovery would cost?

Which Linux? Any.
LinuxMint, for starters.
This is just to see if it can read the drive (and maybe copy data off to something else). Nothing else.

Drive recovery cost? Or data recovery? No idea.