Originally Posted by
Sirscrapalot
It whirrs an then tries again. An just keeps doing that.
OK, don't try powering up that drive anymore. You could end up damaging it further. Just let it RIP (rest in peace!) for now.
When it experienced its untimely demise, were there any clicking or grinding sounds? If you want to listen to more examples of how different brands of HDDs sound when they have various mechanical problems, go here:
Failing hard drive sounds - Datacent.com - Datacent. That might help you diagnose exactly what's wrong.
So far, to me it seems most likely that you have a problem with either the spindle motor or the drive controller board. Those are both better news than something like a head crash, which definitely damages the platter(s) and kills at least some of your data.
Since your HDD is in a desktop, if the spindle motor has a mechanical problem, it's probably because the bearings have seized. (Your computer didn't fall or get knocked hard somehow, did it? If so, then the shaft might actually be bent or broken, especially if it's a Seagate drive.) If the bearings have seized, you would have heard grinding/whining sounds.
If the controller board (the PCB on the drive) is the problem, you might have gotten an error message saying something like "Hard drive failure" and/or heard some clicking sounds. How far into the boot process did you get before you hit the wall? Was the computer able to recognize the hard drive?
If we can narrow the problem down some more, that will help in figuring out the best way to try to recover your data. I also want to see if we can make sure it's not a head crash. If it IS, there's really nothing you can do but give it to a data recovery service. They'll need to do surgery on it in a cleanroom facility.
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