can a laptop harddrive be repaired?

[Jimbilly]

While attempting to scan for some malware (I think it was clean) doing a restart using the 'start button' on my wifes Dell laptop after it froze, it will no longer start. The harddrive makes some clicks and then after a minute or so it makes a high-pitched whine. I think I can get a bios screen up (I'm no a computer expert, I barely get by). I have an Apricorn harddrive cloning kit that allows a laptop harddrive to be accessed as an Edrive, but this harddrive makes the same sounds in this 'outboard' E-drive (usb cable connected) connected to my computer as it does in it's original laptop, and I can't access it as an E-drive. I put my old dell laptop harddrive in her computer, and it works just fine, so I'm pretty sure it's a harddrive failure.

I bought her a decent used laptop from the local good pawn shop, but she wants her old one back. The harddrive is a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 40GB. I should have bought another harddrive from Apricorn and cloned it for backup, but I didn't get around to it in time. There's six little Torx screws holding a cover on the harddrive, can the inner mechanicals be repaired? Should I pull that cover off and have a look?, or take it to a computer repair shop?

[mathman]

Don't pull the cover off, There are no easy repairs for a harddrive. Drives can be sent to specialized recovery services that are very expensive. I use a program called Data Rescue II that works very well. http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_pc_buy.php

I have the mac version, I'm not sure if the Mac version will accurately recover data from a pc formatted drive. I'll check. I work mostly with macs and I can't remember what the pc equivalent would be, but can you open a disk utility program and see if the disk is recognized.

[mirrorimij]

I'm not sure if this relates but a few years ago my work laptop (a Dell) was having some hard drive issues (noisy and the pc wouldn't boot). Our IT took the hard drive out and put it in the freezer for a few hours. When he reinstalled it he was able to get it running briefly while he extracted the data.

Good luck.

[mathman]

I'm not sure if this relates but a few years ago my work laptop (a Dell) was having some hard drive issues (noisy and the pc wouldn't boot). Our IT took the hard drive out and put it in the freezer for a few hours. When he reinstalled it he was able to get it running briefly while he extracted the data.

Good luck.

That can work. Sometimes it is the bearings that wear out. Freezing thickens the lubricant and helps the platters spin true for a while. Light pressure on the drive can sometimes work also.

[Jimbilly]

-thanks! I ordered a new hardrive from Apricorn, I'll just clone my hardrive to use on that laptop. I'll try freezing her hardrive and see what happens.

[Cary]

-thanks! I ordered a new hardrive from Apricorn, I'll just clone my hardrive to use on that laptop. I'll try freezing her hardrive and see what happens.

When my desktop drive went south, one of the things that my friend who is an IT tried was dropping it on the carpeted floor in a spinning motion (twist your wrist and drop it). Believe it or not he said it sometimes un-sticks the drive.

[MrGuitarguy]

So does whacking it with a screwdriver, but that's always a last resort option.

[mathman]

-thanks! I ordered a new hardrive from Apricorn, I'll just clone my hardrive to use on that laptop. I'll try freezing her hardrive and see what happens.

When my desktop drive went south, one of the things that my friend who is an IT tried was dropping it on the carpeted floor in a spinning motion (twist your wrist and drop it). Believe it or not he said it sometimes un-sticks the drive.

That seemed to work better on the older scsi and ide drives. Back when we had a lot of the lc580 lc 52XX series macs I had to do my first repair attempt when the kids weren't in the room. I didn't want them to see me come in an whack the side of the computer real hard to get it to start up again.

[Cary]

-thanks! I ordered a new hardrive from Apricorn, I'll just clone my hardrive to use on that laptop. I'll try freezing her hardrive and see what happens.

When my desktop drive went south, one of the things that my friend who is an IT tried was dropping it on the carpeted floor in a spinning motion (twist your wrist and drop it). Believe it or not he said it sometimes un-sticks the drive.

That seemed to work better on the older scsi and ide drives. Back when we had a lot of the lc580 lc 52XX series macs I had to do my first repair attempt when the kids weren't in the room. I didn't want them to see me come in an whack the side of the computer real hard to get it to start up again.

I actually did that the other day - Windows wouldn't come up, getting an error message, tried rebooting three times and then WHAM!... Started right up. Of course, I spent the rest of the morning backing everything up in case I wasn't so lucky next time

[mathman]

-thanks! I ordered a new hardrive from Apricorn, I'll just clone my hardrive to use on that laptop. I'll try freezing her hardrive and see what happens.

When my desktop drive went south, one of the things that my friend who is an IT tried was dropping it on the carpeted floor in a spinning motion (twist your wrist and drop it). Believe it or not he said it sometimes un-sticks the drive.

That seemed to work better on the older scsi and ide drives. Back when we had a lot of the lc580 lc 52XX series macs I had to do my first repair attempt when the kids weren't in the room. I didn't want them to see me come in an whack the side of the computer real hard to get it to start up again.

I actually did that the other day - Windows wouldn't come up, getting an error message, tried rebooting three times and then WHAM!... Started right up. Of course, I spent the rest of the morning backing everything up in case I wasn't so lucky next time

GOOOOOOOD IDEA!!!!

[specialk]

I spent the rest of the morning backing everything up in case I wasn't so lucky next time

Very smart habit to get into!