Hi,
Pardon me for posting this as I know there are similiar topics , but as I went through each of the responses, everything went above my head.
I have a Western digital Hard disk, It was working until yesterday, but suddenly it stopped working. I mean, whenever I connect the HD to a laptop, it makes a clicking sound for a while and stops. The drive is not being shown in the explorer , but the USB is being recognised in the system Tray. What could be the problem? The capacity of the HD is 500 Gb, I only want to recover about 1 or 2 Gb of data. I went through the professional data recovery websites, and they say it would cost anywhere between 500-2500 USD. It's terribly expensive for a student like me.
Help me out please. I absolutely need this 2 gb of data.

With Western Digital drives, in particular, this is a loaded question. What you describe is the heads knocking back and forth, trying to read the SA. After a few seconds of not having success, the drive comes ready in Kernel mode. In Kernel mode, you basically only have access to the ROM on the PCB...not very helpful to you without thousands of dollars in specialized data recovery tools.

So, as to why this is happening. It could be for one or more of the following:
- damaged PCB
- corrupt SA
- damaged platters
- damaged heads
- misaligned heads

I don't think I missed anything there. I'm sure that someone else on this forum will amend my list, if they see something missing. Because most of these problems require, at the very least, expensive equipment and a suitable donor drive, you will find that a base of $500 reasonable. As for the upper end of the scale at $2500, that really depends on the lab you choose. Most labs, including mine, post the $2500 upper price to cover unforeseen circumstances that require a higher than normal quote. We generally do our best to keep the cost under $1000 here.

With all that being said, I'd say that you'll likely need to bite the bullet and send it into someone to diagnose your problems. Most labs do this for free or for a reasonably low diag fee. Once you are quoted, you can choose to go ahead with the quote, get a second opinion or give up on your data all together.

Good luck!

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Clicking usually a sign of nasty damages to your drive.
Unfortunately, there is no do-it-yourself solution.
You can either take it to a pro for diagnostics/repair or forget about your data.

You can find a lot data recovery pro's on this forum who charge reasonable fees.

Start by posting your location and a full model of the drive.
You will receive some offers and refferences.

P.S. Size and type of the files won't play a role in pricing.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Clicking for a while then stopping is usually a sign of bad heads, not something fixable yourself, sorry.

I would expect a charge of around $1000 to be reasonable for a 500Gb WD.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Clicking for a few seconds and drive shutdown after that, means, either you have one of the heads with reading problem or surface scratch, very common on this model (let me guess, Scorpio Blue Power or the famous WD5000AAKS ?) with such high density platter.

Sad but true, you need pro help to handle this. There are many DR company offers special price for student, and may be they are also member of this forum, hopefully they can help you out.

I personally can handle this problem, but I'm too far away from you, and, the worst part is, my company does not have special price for students (Even my premium price might be cheaper than standard price there in U.S)

Regards,
Jonathan

PS : It's better to record the clicking sound for analysis, but make sure it's not too long in duration, 5 seconds after drive started to spin is enough for first diagnostic, so other DR people here can help with more suggestions.

PPS : I might be wrong about the head problem. My judgment is based on humble experience.

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My Forum