Hi, I have a Toshiba MK4021GAS used in an USB externa case for notebooks hd. When I tried to format it, about half-size of it (middle), it started to make some weird noises, like a thin sound.

Then I created 2 partitions and formated the good part until the middle (about 17GB) and left the remaining part unformatted. But after some time using it, the weird noise appears.

Is it possible to recover my HD to be full formated to 40GB instead 17GB? And what could be that noise? Is it doomed?

Thank you.

It might be bad sectors or the motor is about to fail. Get a new hard drive.

These drives regularly suffer a motor failure. Best to backup your data, buy a new disk and keep the Toshiba as an expensive paperweight which will remind you to backup your data on a regular basis.

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Data Recovery Ireland

The bearing is failing and "catching" which makes the noise you hear.

You don't have long to back up your data before it totally fails . . .

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Scan it with MHDD, Victoria, or various free tools to see if the hd has bad sectors in random places or specific places. A failing motor will produce random read errors. Write down the LBA where the bad sectors start and scan it several times to see if it is random or stays somewhat the same. Then you will have your answer.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Scan it with MHDD, Victoria, or various free tools to see if the hd has bad sectors in random places or specific places. A failing motor will produce random read errors. Write down the LBA where the bad sectors start and scan it several times to see if it is random or stays somewhat the same. Then you will have your answer.

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Thank you all for the great advices. I'm already planning to get a new hd. Also I am planning what nasty stuff I could do to the problematic hd.