recover unresponsive hard disk

dori2o

I have a WD 320gb HDD which I can no longer access.

The drive is receiving power and I can hear it spinning, but I cannot get it to be recognised by the PC or read via a external HDD enclosure.

Any advice appreciated.

millwalll

is it making a clicking noise ? if so it could have died. If not you could try booting into a Linux operating system and see if they picks the drive up. Another options is try running a Seagate tools on the disk maybe it has bad sector on the drive stopping it from booting. If that is the case you might be able to repair the drive. Hope that helps

fwor

You could try booting the PC from SystemRescueCD, as this has test-disk and GPARTED built in.

These may help you recover if the problem is corruption.

However, if the controller has died you probably don't have many options other than turning to a professional data recovery company, which will be very expensive.

andy2004

take the hdd out of the enclosure, and install it internally,
if it works perfectly internally then you need an enclosure. shouldnt cost more much more than £4
you didnt mention whether the drive is a large 3.5in external or a small 2.5in external
as for the connection inside, if its a 3.5 it will either be IDE 3.5 40pin or Sata, as for the 2.5in pretty much the same SATA or IDE 44pin
depending on the age of your computer made in the last 8 years, you should have ide 3.5" and sata, you can get a 2.5in to 3.5in adapter or another enclosure.
You can find instructions usually via youtube on to take enclosures apart.
some are screwless, some have 4 screws, take a close look. if its out of warranty upto you, if its still under warranty you should be able to get it replaced free.
if it does have screws they'll be under the stickers, feet.