HELP! Is hard drive dead?

[TheJunkman]

Hey guys. New here so if this is the wrong area to post this sorry. I need HELP!

I have a MacBook that stopped working about a year and half ago after it got wet. A few months later I got a new MacBook. I took the old Mac's hard drive out (Hitachi HDD SATA) and was using it to store videos/pictures and files by hooking it up to my new mac with a USB enclosure. For a year, moving to and from no issue. Friday I decided to move all of my Photos (the Library fold cause it was about 20GB). It moved over, just fine. I double checked it worked, then deleted the Photo Library on the mac I use. I then noticed the USB drive was getting kind of full, it was about 40GB of space. So I delete a lot of files i didn't need. System files, program files, anything that wasn't videos/pictures. As it was deleted this (about 3,000 files) it got to about 2,100 more to go and my son throw his book pack on to my enclouser, cause it to unplug during the delete. I thought nothing much of it, and deleted I would just delete the rest later.

Well I plugged in the drive, then connected it by USB, and noticed i couldn't hear the drive sound I mostly do. I didn't think much of it but then saw it was not showing in Finder. I check the USB, the AC plug, and unplugged the drive and plugged it back. Hit power again and noticed it wasn't making any sounds and didn't feel like it was doing anything. When I place my ear to the drive itself I can hear a click right after i hit power. No other sounds. (video below).

Thinking it must me my enclosure I tested out a older hard drive I had, it powered and showed on Finder, so I knew it was the hard drive, not the enclosure.

So now my question is, is this hard drive dead? Have I lost all the photos? I had about 5-6 years of family photos on it, and my daughter had almost all her photos on it also. I see now I should have put them in a cloud or something.


Is there anyone to get this drive back or at the least the photos off it? Any help? I got the feeling the news is bad.


thank you so much.

Photo: https://ibb.co/jNCit7

 

[honestone]

Does it show up when you launch Disk Utility? Try that, and let us know.

By the way, the video does not show much.

 

[TheJunkman]

Does it show up when you launch Disk Utility? Try that, and let us know.

By the way, the video does not show much.

video was more for sound, if didn't put the phone right on top it wouldn't get the click sound. even then hard to hear.

but it does not now show up in Finder or Disk Utility

 

[honestone]

video was more for sound, if didn't put the phone right on top it wouldn't get the click sound. even then hard to hear.

but it does now show up in Finder or Disk Utility

Good. Hopefully it is OK.

If I were you, I'd copy everything from the drive back to your Mac, then have Disk Utility perform First Aid on the drive. If all is OK, have Disk Utility Erase and Format the drive. Then copy the stuff back (don't delete your Photos on your Mac!).

 

[TheJunkman]

Good. Hopefully it is OK.

If I were you, I'd copy everything from the drive back to your Mac, then have Disk Utility perform First Aid on the drive. If all is OK< have Disk Utility Erase and Format the drive. Then copy the stuff back (don't delete your Photos on your Mac!).

OPS! DOES NOT SHOW UP

 

[honestone]

Yeah, I kind of thought that is what you meant. Not sure what the issue could be, but not showing up with Disk Utility is disturbing. If you had a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior, that might help.

 

[TheJunkman]

Yeah, I kind of thought that is what you meant. Not sure what the issue could be, but not showing up with Disk Utility is disturbing. If you had a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior, that might help.

I will look into one of those. It seems it has no power, i can't even feel it doing anything
I will try those software if i can and give an update

 

[honestone]

If it is not getting any power, and along with it just clicking once when you power it up, those products will, most likely, not help. You might need to bring it to a repair shop.

 

[TheJunkman]

I got Disk Warrior but it doesn't show up. So i guess all is dead but taking it to someone ? I read some place that i might be able to replace to board that on the back of the hard drive. you think that would be worth trying? laid off work right now so love to fix it as cheap as i can

 

[honestone]

I have never done that, so can't say whether or not that would work. But if it's an inexpensive part, it will not hurt to try.

 

[TheJunkman]

Update! I shacked the hard drive to see it would help. Well it now makes more sounds, and does the clicking thing for about 2 mins, then can hear spinning for a few seconds and nothing but feels like its spinning and working normal. Still doesn't show up on Finder or DU.

 

[honestone]

It seems that the "arms/heads" used to read the information on the drive's platters are not working properly. Not sure if that can be easily repaired. Here is a picture of what I am talking about:

https://www.hdd-tool.com/hdd-basic/hard-disk-and-hard-drive-physical-components.html

Also, this link has details about how to repair the "heads":

http://www.sertdatarecovery.com/hard-drive-data-recovery/read-write-head-stack-replacement

Note that it advices NOT to power up a drive with a bad head/heads. And it does not look like an easy DIY project! However, this video looks "promising":

So, you could either try and find a new "head assembly", or take the one out of your good hard drive, remove the one from the "problematic" drive, and replace it with the "head assembly" from the good drive.

I have never tried this, so there are no guarantees that it will work. But it does look somewhat "easy".

 

[TheJunkman]

thanks again, i will looking to do that. I have a old drive that works but its a bigger drive for a desktop and the one problematic drive is for a notebook. Do you know if the parts would be the same side?

 

[honestone]

I suspect not. If the "larger" drive is a 5.25 inch model, and the smaller one is a 3.5 inch model, I suspect the arms will be of different sizes. You should do a google search to find out for sure.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

I STRONGLY advise you NOT to attempt any sort of repair of the internals of a hard drive. Only trained technicians should attempt this with the proper tools and ISO anti-static cleanroom environment. You will definitely further damage the drive, and prevent the ability for data recovery.

If you really want to recover the data, look into data recovery services. It can be expensive, but it is the best and only way to perform this action.

C