i have a 500 GB momentus 5400.6 2.5" HDD that is malfunctioning.

when i connect it to the motherboard via SATA ports on my PC, the drive spins, but windows dosnt start. the drive is recognized by the bios but the drive size shows 0GB. although all the other parameters are recognizes (firmware, DMA, LBA, SMART and so on).

when i connect it via SATA-USB adapter to my laptop (external drive adapter), the drive spins up and after a few seconds "chirps" about 10 times with 1-1.5 second intervals between "chirps" and then stops spinning. in addition to that, the LED on the side of the adapter turns red and stays red.

i tried using seatools for dos (with the drive connected via SATA directly to the PC motherboard) but the program freezes when scanning for the drives, until i disconnect the 5400.6 and then it recognizes my main drive on the pc

is there anything i can do to fix this without going to a data recovery company (too much money..)? firmware? driver maybe?or is the drive fryed?



thank you very much for any help..
udi perets

All the symptom say "NO MONEY NO DATA" unless you want to try the DIY (Destroy It Yourself) way.

99 out of 100 heads AND/OR media damage.

Do you know what could be the cause of this? I can send a picture of the bios screen and a sound recording of the chirping made when connected by usb..

Agree.

Sorry to say there is NOTHING you can do yourself on this one.

These a tough enough cookies for some pros, never mind DIY.

Sorry.

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Not necessary, we have a certain experience....

You can ensure if the drive alone "chirps" same way when connected to a GOOD power supply (this sorts out the ext. case / interface as cause of the symptom) but BE CAREFUL and remember : everything you do is at your own risk, it's only you who know what's inside the disk. The more you fiddle with it, the more the potential damage.

About the cause it's just failure, normal wear and tear or something happened (physically) and you didn't ever notice. But it is completely useless to investigate on causes - it won't give out a byte out of the dead drive. Concentrate on solutions, instead (but again, no DIY).

Good luck whatever you do and decide.