External HDD Beeping

[rrttomshardware]

Hi,

I have one WD Elements USB3.0 2TB External Hard Disk. It was accidently dropped from a short distance. Now whenever I connect it to the PC, it is making a beeping sound ( in a pattern like 3-3-7 for one minute then stopping the spin ).

The drive letter is not appearing under My Computer. Device manager is not listing the drive as well. Under Disk Management, the drive is shown as 'Not initialized'. Also, if this HDD is connected and the system is restarted, booting will not take place.

Most of the websites suggested that it might be caused by either R/W arm head stuck in platters or the HDD is not getting enough power.

Since the HDD is spinning - at least for some seconds, the beep may not be due to the lack of power. I tried to connect it with a new USB3.0 cable and on many systems. But result was the same.

No data recovery software were able to pickup the drive when connected.
Since the professional/physically repaired data recovery is very expensive, and due to privacy concerns, I have decided to open up the HDD by myself.

I have watched a lot of YouTube tutorials on external HDD disassembly. All of them warned that if it is done by ourselves, there is high chance of permanently losing the data.
It was on warranty period but somehow I needed the data back.

Then I was successful in opening the HDD ( in a clean room ) to the platter level using a Torx 6 screw driver. But it is found that the R/W head was parked decently beside the platters! It was not touching the platters.

After putting the screws back, I tried to connect it back to the USB3.0 port on the PC again.
It was still having the same behavior - spinning, making a pattern beeps, then stopping the spin.

So the two reasons for the beeps were not there -
1) Connecting to different systems with a new cable didn't help
2) The R/W heads position seems fine. There were no scratches on the platters as well.

Now I am confused
What will be the actual reason?

When it was dropped, if any damage occurred in PCB, will it cause the beeping?
Trying to connect it to a Linux based system will help?

ALL I NEED IS DATA RECOVERY - NOT A NEW HDD!

Please help.
Thanks in advance.


-RRT-

 

[cub_fanatic]

It definitely sounds like a stuck head. PCB will not cause this. If the PCB was damaged, you'd probably see a crack or a missing piece. A beep or click of death (as it is sometimes called) is the head/arm assembly. If it was in the "park" position when you opened it, that means it got stuck in that position. You need to release it. There is usually a tab or something that is keeping it in the park position. If you release it and it still beeps/clicks, unfortunately it is dead and you would have to take it to a professional data recovery place which is pretty expensive from what I hear.

EDIT: a reminder, never turn it on when it is open. If you already knew that, disregard.

 

[rrttomshardware]

It definitely sounds like a stuck head. PCB will not cause this. If the PCB was damaged, you'd probably see a crack or a missing piece. A beep or click of death (as it is sometimes called) is the head/arm assembly. If it was in the "park" position when you opened it, that means it got stuck in that position. You need to release it. There is usually a tab or something that is keeping it in the park position. If you release it and it still beeps/clicks, unfortunately it is dead and you would have to take it to a professional data recovery place which is pretty expensive from what I hear.

EDIT: a reminder, never turn it on when it is open. If you already knew that, disregard.

Thanks for the quick reply.
So, it is not the PCB...

One thing to note - it was not a "click". I heard many samples of "click of death". But this is not the case. It sounded like a small speaker beep ( not sure if there is anything like that inside the HDD casing ). And the beep keeps the same pattern whenever it is connected to PC ( not random - always a 3-3-7 beep pattern ).

As per your suggestion, the head/arm assembly is stuck and needs to be released.
Could you please inform what precautions should be taken care of?

 

[cub_fanatic]

It definitely sounds like a stuck head. PCB will not cause this. If the PCB was damaged, you'd probably see a crack or a missing piece. A beep or click of death (as it is sometimes called) is the head/arm assembly. If it was in the "park" position when you opened it, that means it got stuck in that position. You need to release it. There is usually a tab or something that is keeping it in the park position. If you release it and it still beeps/clicks, unfortunately it is dead and you would have to take it to a professional data recovery place which is pretty expensive from what I hear.

EDIT: a reminder, never turn it on when it is open. If you already knew that, disregard.

Thanks for the quick reply.
So, it is not the PCB...

One thing to note - it was not a "click". I heard many samples of "click of death". But this is not the case. It sounded like a small speaker beep ( not sure if there is anything like that inside the HDD casing ). And the beep keeps the same pattern whenever it is connected to PC ( not random - always a 3-3-7 beep pattern ).

As per your suggestion, the head/arm assembly is stuck and needs to be released.
Could you please inform what precautions should be taken care of?

Just don't touch the platters, make sure you are grounded and don't turn it on without the cover. Unfortunately, you've already done one of the worst things that you can do after dropping a hard drive and that is to turn it on and see if it works. But, at this point, you really have nothing to lose by trying to release the head. Just do it really slowly and carefully. You don't want to push down on the arm at all. You might want to use something made out of plastic as well to pry it. If anything, don't use something magnetic if it is metal since the giant magnet in the HDD might pull it into the case and you could ruin something completely on accident. While they all look the same on the outside, there are a bunch of differences in the head design among brands. There might be a tab or something that is holding it in the park position that you would have to release with your other hand and another small pry tool. Other than that, there are plenty of videos on youtube that cover this and there isn't much that I can add. I've only tried this once and I made the same mistake of turning it on first too.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

If you've already opened the drive casing (a big no-no except in a clean lab environment) then your only choice now is a new drive.

Keeping backups would have been a sensible thing to do, then you wouldn't be in this position.
When will PC users learn to keep their files backed up?

 

[cub_fanatic]

If you've already opened the drive casing (a big no-no except in a clean lab environment) then your only choice now is a new drive.

Keeping backups would have been a sensible thing to do, then you wouldn't be in this position.
When will PC users learn to keep their files backed up?

After dropping a HDD and bricking it, that is when people will learn. A bricked drive is how I learned and now I pretty much forced my parents to backup all their important documents to their google drive account, all their photos to google photos and all their videos to youtube or google photos as well. Cloud storage is the best 3rd redundancy after a 2nd HDD copy and the copies on your main drive or phone. Google photos and youtube might be a bit compressed but at least it is there and you have unlimited space for photos and videos. The free 16 GB for documents is plenty for most people as well. They used to keep all their photos and videos on an external HDD and many of the older ones were on burned DVDs. My dad even had a bunch of stuff on the SD cards that he used in the camera and never even copied them to the HDD or DVD. Those are probably the most volatile format for storing data over a long period of time and he did not know that. DVDs might get scratched, HDDs might die, SD cards are just "no" and all three can be lost but google's cloud isn't going anywhere (as long as you remember your password). I saw a video about their servers and they keep at least 2 copies of each account which is pretty nuts if you think about how much data they are holding onto and how much new data is coming in every day. It is also pretty secure if you use 2-factor authentication.

 

[rrttomshardware]

Being portable, all external HDDs must be more resistant to shocks in my opinion..! Also there should be a good warning sign regarding the safe use of HDDs...