laptop hard drive noises and problems

[sonic113]

i have a compaq presario 1720 us laptop. its pretty old, around 4 years i belive. yesterday the hard drive started clicking every few seconds, and its like a accessing click, but it kept on goin. i restarted the computer and it happened again when i got onto windows, so i schedualed a disk checkup using the windows xp tool. when i restarted again, the computer locked up at the windows xp start up screen where theres that little bar thingy. it keeps on clicking but it doesnt load up windows. i have some files on the hd that i need to get, so does anyone have any idea on what i should do to fix it it. im thinking about buying a converter so i can hook it up to my desktop so that i can extract all my files that i need and get a new hd or something. has anyone evey used one of those mini hd enclosure thingys that let you put notbook 2.5 in hds so that you can use it for usb. help me out pleese. thanks.

 

[dumdum8684]

I've worked with a ton of HD's and every time it starts clicking louder than normal like the arm is hitting the side of the HD than it failed with-in a week. My suggestion is don't use the HD until you have some way to back it up. There are converters for 5-10 dollars that convert the connection to a 3.5" IDE and you could slave it on your desktop. The only bad thing is that you would have to open your case. or you could spend another 30-50 dollars getting a USB enclosure and use it with the converter.

 

[sonic113]

hmm thats a good idea. it does sound like the arm is clicking. so i should do it asap so i can save my hd. if it does die, what should i do? it only happens when it starts booting i think....but i dont know. how would i go abut backing up all my data? should i make an image of it or shuld i just drag all the files to my other hard drive. thanks! i hope all my files are still there.

 

[dumdum8684]

draging and dropping is much easier than creating an image but if you have done it before go for the image

 

[bresin]

If you're familiar with the process you may want to create an image. If your drive fails before you backup, you'll have to get a data recovery service, I believe.

 

[silence782]

Sounds like your harddrive is on it's last legs. If the harddrives's swing are is hitting the surface of the disks, the disks themselves are being scratched and it won't be ling before your data is lost entirly. Sorry.

 

[horris1st]

Just back up your files on another computer, via a network, or create a CD, then buy a new hard drive of ebay, a 20GB one goes for about 20 Quid.