Strange sound from my Maxtor 500GB external disk

February 9th, 2009

Original text:
“I think my Maxtor Onetouch III Firewire 400/USB2.0 (500gb) external disk has crashed.. The drive letter shows in windows after quite a while, but not the volume label. And if I click on it it says it cant access the drive due to an “I/O (I/U) Error” and it sometimes asks for a new formatting…

And then there are this little repeated “melody” sound that sometimes occur. Does this tune come from a mechanical error inside??

This is my backup disk for everything and its really a bad thing that it is gone… :( Hope I will find a way to restore some of the data..

Any ideas??”

How I managed to recover the data:
“After a week of hard work I managed to get out everything I needed from the disk in the video. I tried a huge amount of recovery programs until I had to buy Seagates own File Recovery DIY software. Along with the recovery program I used a method of placing the disk in the fridge so it got cold (not frosty and icy. the frost can melt and damaged the disk further) and then rush to the pc and connect the disk and copy out as much as i could before it got warm again. It worked for me. Dont give up!”

Posted in Category Data Recovery

25 Responses to “Strange sound from my Maxtor 500GB external disk”

  1. hadr0n on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    maxtor are very unreliable. swap it for another brand!

  2. megamarsvin on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Sounds like that “ticking clock” sound they have on gameshows.. Or timebombs O_o

  3. TheLaughingTech on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    I think its moris code? give me a second to translate… pull ….your….data…NOW!

  4. ocping on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    hip hop hdd in da house yo

  5. cheetawolf on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    or kill it more… :P

  6. goldenboi24k on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    sounds like a bomb

  7. xXtortionXx on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    its masturbating…

  8. BigBananaMan on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    That’s the head getting lost and slamming back and forth across the disk. Whenever you hear clicking sounds come from a drive and it never did before, that means you have an impending drive failure and eventually all it’ll do is click like this one. If that drive is not under warranty any more you can open it up to see the arm that makes the noise. You can also get some wicked powerful magnets out of it.

  9. duttyboybling on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Sound’s Like A Baby breast feeding!! lolz

  10. Gb755c on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    I have a Fantom Drives Ext 80GB hard drive it’s fanless and very quiet. I leave it running 24/7 without any issues it doesn’t get very hot.

  11. Lusitanus on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    my god its a bomb lol

  12. MaxSynths on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Just today I’ve discovered that Maxtor and Seagate are the same company. Funny, isn’t it? :D

  13. jwjustlookin on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    reminds me of a clock for some reason yo, you should get that checked out.

  14. CHA0SD3LTA on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    You can get a external case that allows internal harddrives be played, Anything by Seagate to be fair, I have tow Seagate harddrives in my current PC and they’re quite fast

  15. SevereTstormFan on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    What would be a really good external hard drive brand?

  16. IngeNaning on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    At least it sounds less than when the OneTouch III fan goes bad. I’m using my 300 GB drive to defrost cupcakes. *yum*

  17. maxtornogood on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Sounds like Maxtor allright ;)

  18. CHA0SD3LTA on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Protip: Maxtor suck, Most of them burnout/Fail at working really quickly, Seagate FTW

  19. jaswane on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Well I can’t be 100% sure that the fridge was the solution, but the disk got hot very quickly when I tried to copy data from it (perhaps because of the friction the write/read head caused). After a little trip in the fridge I could use it again. It’s essential of course that the disk doesn’t stay there to long. If it freezes with ice, it will of course melt and damage it further.

    Experts told me that this disk was long gone and nothing could be done to.. But at least I tried and it worked.:)

  20. DURAMATRIX112 on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    sound like a clock.

  21. HelloNewYorkCity on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    My macbook has a fujitsu 80GB and it just died yesterday and it made phaser sounds!

  22. Meowbay on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Did the fridge thing really make a difference (I mean, are you absolutely sure THAT was essential in the fixing?). Experts I know have told me that trying to freeze a HDD in order to access data on it is one of those ridiculously stupid myths. It will in fact damage the drive more rather than fix it a little.

  23. Terrum on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    Sounds like my hard-drive, Basically it’s broken. The stick inside it what reads the data is hitting the sides and is basically broken. So you can either get a professional to fix it for you (which costs so much) or get a new one for cheaper.

  24. killerbeenl on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    JEP I’ve got the same sound…. SOUND OF DEATH I think:S Hour later my front light was going green red red red to green again and again. Damn lucky no really imp. data on it. I promised myself not to buy A MAXTOR because they have always died. :S TOO BAD I DID. NEXT DRIVE NO MAXTOR for me

  25. gnutelliums on February 9th, 2009 7:59 am

    does the tone go

    boudle-boudle-bolde?

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