If your drive is making a steady, loud clicking noise, stop and skip to part two. Your drive is dead.
Make sure power is getting to the computer. If the cat knocked out the plug, or cable is broken, nothing will work. Open up the computer case. Are the data (IDE or SATA) and power cables firmly in place? Make sure they are seated well, and no pins are bent, broken, or otherwise damaged.
Look for signs of damage—burns or scorch marks. If you see this, you can breathe a little sigh of relief, for it means that is your likely culprit—and often, this is a problem that can be fixed with relative ease. If you want to replace the PCB, search on Google for replacement parts for your drive’s make and model. When it arrives, remove the old board (there are five tiny screws to remove—don’t lose them!) Slide out the old drive and replace it with the new one. Do not touch the metal leads on the new board—static discharge could blow your new board before it ever has a chance to breathe new life into your drive. You can ground yourself by either wearing an anti-static wrist band or by touching something grounded and metal. The inside of your plugged-in computer will usually work. Slide in the new board, making sure it’s seated firmly into the drive, then re-attach the screws. Reconnect the drive to the computer, then power back up. If it works, congratulations! It’s a good idea to back up your data at this point, but you’re ready to go. If it doesn’t work—keep reading.
Truth is, maybe it will! But there’s one big caveat: the chips on the controller are, more and more, calibrated for that particular drive, and there’s no guarantee a replacement will work. However, this is by far the least-expensive option.
Turnaround times can be quicker than the DIY method, and success is somewhat more assured, but it comes at a cost, which may be worth it if your data is important. You can expect to pay two or three times more than the original cost of the drive, so you will have to weigh the value of the money against the value of the data on the drive.
Test and plug the drive into another functional computer that’s already running its own operating system as see if it works.
Remove the drive and repeat the first step. If you still can’t hear any noises, go on to the next step. However, if there is a difference, reattach the drive to your computer and listen for spin-up of the drive and normal clicking that indicates head activity. If all seems well so far, try to access the drive, and move your data onto a good drive. If needed, reheat the device and, while holding the drive in one hand, sharply spin and hit the drive on a hard surface. This is drastic of course but may help free the heads from any binding. If anything was still alive on your hard drive, it would now be totally and finally dead. Repeat the first step. Can you hear head movement now? If yes, re-attach the drive to your computer, and try accessing the drive. If you can hear a rhythmic “click” in time with the movement, the chances are that the drive heads are free on their mounts and are not jammed. Check that you don’t hear any rattling noises when you rotate the drive gently (back and forth) through 90 degrees. This would indicate loose and disconnected components inside the drive and are beyond the scope or intent of this article.
Seal the drive in a zip-lock bag, and remove as much air as possible. Pop the drive into the freezer for a few hours. Plug the drive back into the computer and give it a try. If it doesn’t work immediately, power down, remove the drive, then smack it on a hard surface such as a table or floor. Re-attach the drive, and try again. If it works, save your files, then toss the drive. If it doesn’t, your drive will now be beyond all methods of professional help!!
Check their guarantee, and how much they charge for both success (which you will gladly pay for) or for failure. How much is it worth to you for them to make a failed attempt. You may not want to pay for a recovery that didn’t happen, but if they attempted to repair and if failed, they still spent some amount of time trying, which should be compensated.
