Toshiba Stor.E 500GB Harddrive Unrecognisable

S

Shine9585

Guest
Hi all,

In Feb this year I bought a 500GB Toshiba Stor.E portable hard drive. I partitioned it and used part as my time machine back up, and the other as a regular file storage space.

It has been well cared for, and worked fine for the first 8 months but last week it froze while in use and started to make a clicking sound. I ejected it properly, after some difficulty as it also slowed my computer. Thinking it was perhaps to hot I left it aside to cool.

Then today I used it again and in instantly started clicking and crashed finder. The backup section mounted, or at least appeared in finder, though I couldn't click it. I couldn't even force quit finder to restart it and eject so shut down the computer and restarted. The computer wouldn't restart until I had unplugged the drive.

Once it had started I plugged the drive in again, but this time it let out 11 beeps (some sort of high pitched mechanical squeek) and then the computer gave an error message (the disk you inserted was not readable by the computer. With the options initialize, ignore and eject.

Firstly I initialised disk utility which showed the drive, but neither of the partitions. In all subsequent attempts I have ejected and unplugged.

I have emailed Toshiba today but not had a reply.

The drive is Toshiba PA4152E-1HE0 500GB 2.5" External Silver Steel Hard Drive - I am using Mac OS X 10.5.8 4GB ram.

I know some parts of that are the same as other peoples issues but I haven't seen anything quite the same.

The time machine partition is relatively unimportant is it is a back up, the other section is largely duplicates though it does have some files which are too large to have either on my mac or on my other hard drive due to the format.

Time is what is really important, I can't be without this for too long and while it is not working I also have no time machine back up which does leave me feeling slightly uneasy.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Stuart
 

vansmith

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It has been well cared for, and worked fine for the first 8 months but last week it froze while in use and started to make a clicking sound. [...] Then today I used it again and in instantly started clicking and crashed finder.
The clicking sound signifies that the HD is dying (or is dead now). As such, you'll need to get a new one. You can continue to try using it to get the files you want off of it but the more you use it, the lower the chances will be that recovery will be successful.
 
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S

Shine9585

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Thanks

I was worried that might be the case.

Still no reply from Toshiba, typical. What would you suggest to rescue the contents?

I'm going to avoid using it until I know what I can do to get what I need off.
 

chscag

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Rescuing the contents of that hard drive may either be very expensive (professional data rescue service) or not possible using standard means. It sounds like the drive mechanically failed which means that even specialized software will be unable to help. Rescuing the data professionally can cost more than your computer. It's probably best to replace it and press on.
 
OP
S

Shine9585

Guest
Thanks again

Thanks for the advice.

I'll be taking it up with toshiba because 9 months of use for a hard drive really is shoddy and i can't afford to keep buying new ones for less than a years worth of use.
 

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