My oldest WD internal drive is 14 yo and all of a sudden it started clicking loudly and shutdown itself after 30sec. Removing the data cable as WD suggest didn't help. A guy from recovery services said, if it's spinning, 99.9% it's not the PCB.
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My HDD never fell, nor got a physical damage. Could be heads calibration issue or a damaged Service Area that stores manufacture data required for HDD operation.
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I thought of opening and inspecting the heads and platters, pulled the HDD out and while holding it bottom up connected it to the power. Surprisingly, the gravitational force made the trick with the heads! The HDD started spinning without clicking. Holding in this position, I connected the data cable, opened the Device Manager and performed a Scan for HW changes. The drive was detected and showed in Windows. I copied all the needed files, except two that failed reading at 95% due to bad sectors. Copied those using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier. It took two days to copy while HDD is in bottom up position.
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I thought of opening and inspecting the heads and platters (drive has no critical data on it), pulled the HDD out and while holding it bottom up connected it to the power. Surprisingly, the gravitational force made the trick with the heads! The HDD started spinning without clicking. Holding in this position, I connected the data cable, opened the Device Manager and performed a Scan for HW changes. The drive was detected and showed in Windows. I copied all the needed files, except two that failed reading at 95% due to bad sectors. Copied those using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier. It took two days to copy while HDD is in bottom up position.
Don't rush throwing it away.
My oldest WD internal drive is 14 yo and all of a sudden it started clicking loudly and shutdown itself after 30sec. Removing the data cable as WD suggest didn't help. A guy from recovery services said, if it's spinning, 99.9% it's not the PCB.
My HDD never fell, nor got a physical damage. Could be heads calibration issue or a damaged Service Area that stores manufacture data required for HDD operation.
I thought of opening and inspecting the heads and platters, pulled the HDD out and while holding it bottom up connected it to the power. Surprisingly, the gravitational force made the trick with the heads! The HDD started spinning without clicking. Holding in this position, I connected the data cable, opened the Device Manager and performed a Scan for HW changes. The drive was detected and showed in Windows. I copied all the needed files, except two that failed reading at 95% due to bad sectors. Copied those using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier. It took two days to copy while HDD is in bottom up position.
Hope this helps someone.