WD: tick, tick, tick, ... thunk challenge!

[John .]

On a WD 250gb drive, I can't access it anymore. As soon as the
computer starts, I hear: tick, tick, tick (about 10 times), then a
metallic clunk sound. This repeats.

The bios says it is a WD 2500 with about 8500 mb (note megabytes!).
Sometimes the bios doesn't wait long enough and doesn't detect
anything.

Is there any way to recover information if the drive is not recognized
properly in the bios? (besides mailing it off to a recovery service
lab)?

I have tried it in a different PC which shows the 8500 megabytes in
the bios, but then won't even boot a dos diskette--system just hangs.
I even tried attaching it to a promise controller card, but promise
didn't even find the drive.

I can feel it rotating during the tick tick error recovery process.

Any ideas?

 

[Rod Speed]

On a WD 250gb drive, I can't access it anymore.
As soon as the computer starts, I hear: tick, tick, tick
(about 10 times), then a metallic clunk sound. This repeats.

Its dead, John. You into necrophilia ?

The bios says it is a WD 2500 with about 8500
mb (note megabytes!). Sometimes the bios doesn't
wait long enough and doesn't detect anything.

Is there any way to recover information if the
drive is not recognized properly in the bios?
(besides mailing it off to a recovery service lab)?

Not if you value the data on the drive.

I have tried it in a different PC which shows the 8500 megabytes in
the bios, but then won't even boot a dos diskette--system just hangs.

I even tried attaching it to a promise controller
card, but promise didn't even find the drive.

Its dead, John. You into necrophilia ?

I can feel it rotating during the tick tick error recovery process.

The ticking is the drive recalibrating when it cant read the platters.

 

[Tod]

Western Digital drives are known for their Click of death,
or in your case the "Tick tick tick of death".
Mail it off to the data recovery service if you want your data.