Iomega hard drive clicking noise!

Bob_dole

Hi all

I accidentally dropped my Iomega hard drive the other day, containing my only back up for tons of photos etc over the years.
Anyway, it won't connect to my laptop any longer, the HD just makes a clicking noise for about 10 secs then goes silent. The light on the HD stays on throughout.

I have been searching on the net & some sites are saying to recover data from an expert could cost 1 or 2 grand, yikes!!!

Does anyone have any idea if you have come across a similar issue with an Iomega HD before? If so, is it possible to fix myself & recover the data?

If not can you kindly recommend anyone in the Kildare/Dublin area who could fix this for a more reasonable price?

Many thanks in advance!

Ironbar

There is a lot in Dublin. I think a 500GB HDD recovery is about 700 Euro.

Alternatively what you could try first is take the drive out of its bay.

Hook it up to a PC and see if the BIOS will recognize it.

If thats working then boot up with a LINUX rescue disk.

Something like Parted Magic or the likes.

If you're lucky you might be able to retrieve your files and copy them to a stick/HDD.

Clicking noise though is a very bad sign.

Good luck !!

Bob_dole

Many thanks ironbar!

Sorry for my ignorance but I wouldn't be the most knowledgable when it comes to computers :-(

In simple terms, what do I need to do to connect this to see if it works?

And what is the Linux suggestion, is that something I download from the Internet?

Marsden

My iomega stopped working too. I took it out of the case and put it in my windows 7 PC, there was a load of text about orphan files on the first start up but all the files were fine.

Ironbar

If it's a newer drive it's more than likely an SATA drive and if your laptop is new it should have the same interface.

SATA has a small connector for the data and a wider one for the power.

You will also see it in the windows device manager. Usually SATA drives have an "S" at the end of the name.

Download Parted magic: http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=downloads#.Uc7Nu21HjYU

and Image burn: http://www.imgburn.com/

burn the Parted Magic ISO-File on a CD/DVD with Image burn.

Then take the battery out of the laptop. Open case on the under side of the laptop and take the original drive out.

Put the IOMEGA drive in. Put the CD/DVD in the drive and boot up.

Parted magic should start. If it doesnt your boot sequence in the laptop BIOS needs to be altered.

Enter the BIOS with DEL or F1/F2 (depending on your laptop) and look for boot sequence. Change it so the CD/DVD is first boot device.

RossieMan

Ticking noise usually means the hard drive is for the bin, unless you want to spend a fortune getting your information.

Interesting to see different ways of getting it back though, must try it next time i've got a problem like this.