Hard drive failure

[Shawnster]

4tb hard drive used for media storage. Starting yesterday it won't mount. Computer cannot see the drive. As if it's not plugged in.  Has power.  Seems like the drive has failed. 

 

Is there any hope? 

[Vinnie]

What kind of drive? internal external, platter, SSD,  m.2,  How old is it?  have you tried plugging it into a different port with a different power connector? is it kept  level? 

 

Did you get any notices of imminent drive failures? Did you notice any issues? any static in the area? 

 

what motherboard do you have? how old is it? 

 

[jwhess]

Does this computer have more than one hard drive?  Can the other drive boot the system and allow troubleshooting to take place from the working drive?

 

Can the uncooperative drive be installed in another  computer to see if it responds?  Four TB drives may have special formatting, did something change the way the OS recognizes hard drives (only accepts exFAT or NTFS formatting)?

[Shawnster]

oops, sorry.

 

External hard drive.  I have already tried 2 computers and multiple USB ports.  Restarted both computers.  No, not SSD.  No notice of drive failure.  I had just watched a show Monday and it stopped working Tuesday.  Someone suggested it might just be the cable has gone bad.  

[Qapla]

Yes, it is possible the power cable has broken

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

If it is an external HDD, the cradle may have failed. Disassemble the external housing pulling out the HDD. Try to connect directly to the inside of a PC.
Hoping for the best.


Old (Downunder) Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

If that does not work, and you are desperate to get the information from the dead drive - there is one more (expensive) possibility, but with no guarantees.
You need to source another working drive of the same model. Open them both and swap the platters from your dead drive to the working one.
If the data is still intact, copy them ASAP.
As the drives are sealed to protect them from dust and particles, the lifespan is short once you open them.
Any dust that come between the reading head and the magnetic data platter (@,7200rpm) will cause permanent damage. Therefore it would be wise to do this in the most sterile environed you can find.
That reminds me...
I should go back up my data...

Old (Downunder) Tone

[Shawnster]

Thanks, I'll try these suggestions and see.  I'll start with replacing the cable.   I'll keep you all posted.

[GoldenAge]

On 4/22/2021 at 5:50 PM, Shawnster said:

Thanks, I'll try these suggestions and see.  I'll start with replacing the cable.   I'll keep you all posted.

Just note that some of these drives are encrypted and would not work outside of their box. Maybe post exact model so we can tell if it's one of these... 

[LoneWanderer]

Do you have any of your important files saved on the cloud or could you use a program like Recuva to potentially recover any files from the drive? (https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva)

[carlos]

9 hours ago, LoneWanderer said:

Do you have any of your important files saved on the cloud or could you use a program like Recuva to potentially recover any files from the drive? (https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva)

The problem is Recuva (and similar software) will only work if the drive is accessible. In this case it seems the disk is not responding. It could be the cable, the controller in the case, or the disk itself. It's cheaper to start by changing the cable. If that's not the problem, extract the disk from the case and try connecting it directly to the PC or in another case. If it's the disk that is broken there are not many chances of recovering the info unless one is willing to spend a good amount of money.

[Floyd]

It could also be the circuit board on the drive which can also be replaced.

[Shawnster]

On 4/23/2021 at 9:19 PM, LoneWanderer said:

Do you have any of your important files saved on the cloud or could you use a program like Recuva to potentially recover any files from the drive? (https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva)

No. Nothing on the cloud. Nothing really important on the external HD. It's exclusively a media server. We'll, it's not the server, it's the storage. 

[Mykyl]

If you have tried everything you can and exhausted all options then I would remove the drive and plug it into a caddy.

I have managed to get data off drives in the past doing that. 
 

[sis little]

What does it mean when one day you had sound and now you don't, I have tried to update but it tells me that there is no output nor input device found?

 

Soundless on the web

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Some details might be handy. Ie:

What device? (Pc, laptop, tablet, phone)
What operating system? (Windows, Mac, Android or iOS)
What program are you trying to run?
What model & versions of the above?
Did you update anything just before the problem started?

A good start is to turn everything off for 2 minutes, and restart everything.

Let us know how you go.


Old (Downunder) Tone