Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

My harddisk clicks. Is there a method to repair it?

I have two partitions. The first partition works. If I access the second partition, the harddisk gives audible ticks, and Windows tells me there is a cyclic redundancy error and sometimes offers me to reformat that partition. So it seems the drive spins up fine, but can't access the second partition because of a physical failure.

Because of the clicky sound the harddisk gives me, I know the harddisk is broken. Although I'm still able the access the first partition (with Windows on it). If I stop using a driveletter for my second partition, Windows runs fine. As soon as I link a driveletter again to the second partition, and access it, it's getting slow accessing it, which it can't, and the drive starts clicking again. It does several tries, then Windows and the harddisk give up and Windows come up with errors like above.

Questions:

1. If the error only occurs on (the end of) the big 2nd partition: what if I would chop that partition in two parts, and try to salvage files from the first part with a file repair tool. Could that work? Windows would probably want me to format the new partitions, but then ofcourse I'm sure all data will go lost (well, a quick format might not harm the files).

2. For a normal person, it is probably not possible to open the harddisk and put the magnetic discs in another disc closure (so I would have to open 2 drives, and close 1)? (I have no clean room, and no special tools.) Getting this done by a specialist drive repair company, is way to expensive...

I'm not comfortable to put in the fridge... I can try, but I don't expect it to get better (it might even get worse because of condens).

2 Answers

Relevance
  • ?
    Lv 4
    7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    I can only suggest this that back up as much data possible from the partition which is still healthy. Try to copy files from partition producing tickle sounds. It might not run correctly and may halt the copy process. Seek a professional data recovery service that can extract data from the drive in case the entire media goes corrupt. Tickle sound is produced when HDD develops physical damages on the surface or other parts of the HD.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Replace it immediately, the heads are scratching the surface of one or more platters.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.