My External Hard drive is making clikcing sounds

[Dann Riungi]

I bought a freeagent seagate external HDD, volume 1TB. I bought it in February this year, meaning its a little less than half a year old. i have been downloading mostly movies, tv, and music since then. since internet is not very fast where I'm from, i usually left it overnight downloading, just receiving data almost 24/7. it is now full of 800GB data. two days ago, i stopped booting my computer by manually holding the power button while the external HDD was connected to the computer. shortly after that, i started playing a forty-minute video from the hard drive to the television (Sony bravia's usb play). everything was fine until halfway through when it stopped playing. the tv stopped detecting the HDD and the drive began making cyclical clicking sounds. i tried ejecting and inserting the usb for the HDD several times, but it just detected the files and didn't play them. when i connected to my computer, the HDD is not connected. I mean, from the list of usb ports indicate they can detect a freeagent hard disk, but i cannot see it on "my computer". i left the drive to "rest" overnight and in the morning everything seemed fine. the computer and tv detected it without problem. after around two hours, it started making the noises again. now, my computer can't detect the HDD. the tv can detect it, but cannot play the files. it just makes that clicking noise, which is new, i've never had it before. I am giving you all this information because i need you to understand what the drive's been through and how old it is. sincerely, i don't think ANY electronic is supposed to last six months and start dying. its just a fucking rip-off! I need your help on this.

 

[RealBeast]

It really doesn't matter what you think should happen, electronics are not 100% or even close, lose the emotion and fix the problem.

Seems that the drive is likely dying -- it happens. If there is anything on the drive that you need get it off ASAP. Then go to Seagate's support site and start an RMA. They are pretty quick; I've done a half dozen Seagate external drive RMAs.

 

[Dann Riungi]

thanks. But could you help on how to remove the data off the hdd because like i said, the computer can't detect the drive. so how am i supposed to back up? I have also tried setting up a forum at http://forums.seagate.com and no response. its been more than 48 hours now. please help.

 

[RealBeast]

You can try a data removal tool like RECUVA, but it is not likely that you will be able to get much if anything off of it -- no harm to try though.

Sadly, the external drive makers don't warn users to back up anything important from external drives to something more reliable if it is important, as external drives commonly fail.

 

[Dann Riungi]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

[Dann Riungi]

It don't even work. It can't detect the hard-disk and the software needs to read the hard drive in order to recover or back up anything.

 

[RealBeast]

Then you cannot recover anything. I've had a couple Seagate external drives die in the warranty period and they are pretty quick to process the RMA.

 

[Dann Riungi]

I'm not giving up on it yet. What's an RMA, tell me how to go about that?

 

[RealBeast]

RMA = return merchandise authorization. It is what you need to set up on the Seagate site before you can send stuff back under warranty.

Go HERE and click begin a return.

 

[Dann Riungi]

Alright.