Hi, Two days ago my Toshiba notebook's hard drive (MK8025GAS) started making screechy noises and before I had a chance to arrange backup media, it stopped working. I had a chance to get it running three-four more times but it didn't stay up enough to boot. I have already tried the freezing and shaking method, but it no longer works. The times it came back up was after drive sat in freezer for hours and with couple shakes. I have attached an MP3 of the sound it's now making. Can anyone tell me if this is a motor, head or logic board problem? I'm am sort of ruling out the logic board, since the original symptoms started with disturbing noises. I have ordered two identical drives, just to compare apple to apples. I am planning to format one of the new drives, do error check, then open the drive, close it back up and error check again to see what happens. I have read about people doing this without a clean room and getting success. If the new drive doesn't go bad with couple attempts, I will open the old drive to see if anything inside got loose. If nothing is loose, then the next step is to try to see if I can swap the disks between the two new drives and see if I can still get them to work. If a few attempts work, then I will swap the disk from the old drive to one of the new drives. Any opinions?
My concern is to recover my data. I will replace the drive once I have the old one running for about an hour.
when you freeze a drive you should leave it in the freezer for 3 days and then it will only works for about 20 mins after trying the freezing twice you need to try the opposite to freezing, heat, put the drive in the oven at about 100 degrees C, not too hot to melt the plastic parts, it needs to be in the oven for about 4 - 5 hours[ot]you will need to use an oven glove when you remove the drive from either the freezer or the oven[/ot]BTW: this is a last resort data reteival method, as it only works about 2 in 10 times, Good Luck BTW: if you need the drive running for longer than 20 mins, repeat the last step before you started getting the data off the drive, as many times as needed Edit: i've never heard the freezer trick used in conjunction with shaking the drive before, i'll check it out Edit: the sound file you posted is inconcistent, assuming your HDD spins at 5400RPM, the "screechy noises" should appear to be constant Edit: for instructions check this
