Windows 7 - NEED HELP !!!! Bad External HDD

Hi everyone,

I not to sure if this is the right place to post this. If so sorry in advance.

Ok, so I am having a bit of trouble with my external HDD it is 2tb. So when I plug it in nothing comes up. So when I go into disk management it comes up that it is unallocated and not initialised. So I try to initialise it in both settings but it comes up with the message "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" I am running windows 7 64-bit. Do you need any more information?

I have tried to analyse the disk with testdisk but it doesn't find any partition even with the deeper search. That was with the Intel partition table type. So I tried changing it is None (Non partitioned media) but I calculated that it would take 27 years to process. Before I had any problems with it it had just under 2tb on it and I believe it was just a single partition.

I tried taking the HDD out of the case and put into my desktop but it had the same problem.

So what I what to know is there any possible way of retrieving the data. If not could I possibly somehow copy the data onto a different drive. Is the drive faulty cause I have only had it under a year. If you need more information please don't hesitate to ask

I would really appreciate any help or suggestions.

Thanks in advance everyone.

There's an old techy trick of sticking your hard drive in a sealed bag with a bag of "do not eat" (you know the stuff that comes with everything these days lol)

And stick it in your freezer for a few hours, and then try it.

A common cause of a dying hard drive is heat, so lowering the temperature dramatically can give you enough time to recover data.

Don't expect a miracle though, I've only had about 15-20mins use before its gone again. Some people have no luck, and your find they will be the ones that follow my post with "OMFG!?!?!? Such a noob that doesn't work.." Or such :P

But it does, just google it and you'll find a lot of other suggesting it.

That is of course if a hard drive expert comes along and has a more specific answer to the issue, you can go down the root of trying to change the pcb board on your HHD but that's never a guaranteed fix, especially if its a header or alignment fault.

does any noise come out? grating, clicking, loud buzzing or a whir noise when you plug it in?

I just put it in the freezer, I'll leave it in there for 2 hours ?
Also it sometimes makes quite clicking noise but you really have to listen for it.
Thanks

Putting it in the freezer didn't help, any other ides?

Thanks

I hope you followed his direction about the little bag though, otherwise you might've worsened the problem. When metal parts cool they sweat, sorta like the outside of a cup of soda from a fast food place on a hot day, and that can actually ruin the component. Did you try any kind of program like Piriform's Recuva (Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download)? It's not a really good fix but it could at least tell you if there's anything at all on the disk left to look for.