One failed HDD, contents visible in other but can't rd/write

[MAMBO04]

Hey all,

Basically, i have two Seagate External HDD's, the 1TB ones. I can provide the serial numbers if you want, but they are the newest Expansion HDD's. Firstly, one HDD (which is full to the brim) has failed and i've already filled in a replacement for it, but i just want to ask before i do that, the green light flicks on and off when a power source is connected to it, but there is no sound coming from the HDD, is that a full fledged failure?

Also, i just got another one this week, and i turned it on today, working okay, i'm using Windows 7 by the way, and i tried to copy some data from that HDD to my PC, it took ages in discovering how many items to transfer, and when it finally did start transferring it was going at 2.33kb/s! it wasn't working properly at all, everything else was fine though which was odd. My comp kept on getting stuck as well whenever i tried to navigate through the HDD. Listened to the HDD, it was working but there was a slight flickering sound but it was very small. I don't know what's wrong with it but i really DON'T want to send this one back and get all my data erased, i transferred my whole video footage from my trip to Morocco and i'm afraid it's going to be lost. I have a lot of other stuff on it too and replacing isn't an option for me at the moment, as you can see it's working fine, but it's acting amazingly odd.

Also realised something else, when i picked it up it was really REALLY magnetic. In other words you know when magnets repel, it was repelling from something but it was pretty strong, don't know if this is usual?

So overall, i'm pretty sure my first HDD has failed, but just want to confirm with you guys, and my second one is working fine, as in the computer detects it, i can see my files/folders, but i cannot copy anything to it or copy from it, and it frequently gets stuck so it makes it impossible to navigate through. I just got it as well.

I posted this in Seagate's forums, i got good advice from a user, he said that the new drive has a bad head or bad media, and that for the old one my best bet would be to clone the drive using software that knows how to skip around bad patches in the media. DDrescue/ MediaTools Pro.
but i need to see if people have more advice on what to do. I contacted Seagate to recover my drives but they said it would cost a whopping 500-1000 pounds!! Seriously out of their minds...

Anyway, any help is appreciated! thanks.

[Alexii]

i would suggest trying to connect ur 1st hdd directly to motherboard and see if it spins or not / if BIOS sees it or not. About ur 2 one - weak heads possible. Slow/bad sectors possible. Since u are in UK - id suggest contacting PCimage for a diagnostic and if it is in fact slow / bad sectors see how much he will charge u to bit copy ur drive on DDI. Alternate way is trying to bit copy urself using HDclone or smth , but this runs the risk of losing data.

One way or another m8. Get diagnostics on the drive ( ima sure UK shops offer them for free if drive was not opened ) And come back. It may be DIY and may not.