hey guys, for the first time in lass than a year, my external onetouch maxtor hardrive is making these weird noises and then it made the computer freeze and slow down - so then I rebooted and waited and the screen was white for a while until I turned off the external hdd and then the computer continued turning on right after I turned off the external hdd.

the noise it's making is kinda a puh......puh.......puh........puh.......pubbebebeb

The computer is not recognizing it now after I rebooted...please help!


Steve

whatever you do, back it up ASAP, if you still can

In a best case scenario, the controller circuit board directly on the hard drive itself is bad. To recover your data, you will probably need to buy another hard drive exactly identical to the one that is inside of your one-button backup enclosure.

You would probably do best cracking open the enclosure and looking at the model number of the drive and then look for a replacement on Ebay so that you can get the exact controller board for that drive. I wouldn't reccomend purchasing another one-button backup unit because the manufacturers are always changing up the drive inside even though it might be the exact same model and specs on the outside.

Changing out the controller isn't that hard but it is a delicate procedure and it's not something that anyone can do. But if you are good with tools and you take your time and if you are the type of person who can figure out how to take something apart and put it back together just by looking at it, then this should be a fairly straight forward project.

The first rule about having a computer is to always backup your data. The second rule is to never put all of your eggs in one basket.

I would try to take the harddisk out of the case and build it directly in my pc. Then I can copy the data to another external disk. When my data is secure, then the next step would be for me to repair the controller in the case or by a new one and leave the other in the pc...

Greetings

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Christian B.
Die Basis, Mainz, Germany
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This is my backup drive! But I also have some new stuff that I work on weekly. I have a another drive similar to it that I am trying to back everything up on - I just don't have a double USB cable for my networking drive so that I can plug it into my computer.

OK, I just unplugged it from the computer while it was off, then I turned it on and it sounded perfectly normal, but when I plugged it back in while it was on, the noise and racket started again.... what could be the problem? if it runs fine until I put it into the computer - it must not be failing???? right ??

It's failing. Hopefully there isn't any mechanical damage in the drive like a broken spring or a bad bearing. Turn the drive upside down or lay it on down on the long side to see if there is any change in the noises.

It's worth a try but if it's making all of that noise, the controller inside of the enclosure probably has nothing to do with the problem. The controller on the drive itself is about the only thing that can be swapped relatively inexpensively.

I'd say try installing the drive locally-to a machine you don't need-and see if that will work for you. If it's making the same sounds, then the drive's going quickly.

If it isn't-then it's likely your external drive controller has failed. That's much simpler to deal with-just buy a decent external case (probably easier than trying to individually replace the drive controller inside).

I was able to freeze my external drive and get the data off of it -- after it started making sounds like what you're describing.

I wrote about it here.