Need major help here

[R_ACE1]

Hello everyone,

Ok, a friend of mine's 2yr. old 500G Seagate external took a serious crap on him. I asked him to shut ii off and back on. While listening, it spun up for a few seconds then stopped. It then makes a humm noise (as if the spindle is stuck) and a beep every 5 seconds (I think the beep is the arm cycling).
We are currently searching the net for (temp fixes) to get it back started until he DL's all his data.

Here's is where it's very serious; he is a DJ and ALL his music, sound bytes, and DJ programs are in this external. Without this he cannot do his job.

I'm still looking on this forum for anything similar, I thought I would post this message before searching (just in case).

He understands the complication behind this so mailing his HDD to a data recovery site will be expensive. If there is any idea you could give us as a way to start it would be very appreciated.

 

[Klue22]

well its drastic, but if the problem is really what you suspect it is, and there is an actual problem with the HD hardware, then there really is not much to do other than either sending it to a data recovery center, or fixing it yourself, the best thing I can throw out there with my current knowledge of the situation is that you would have to open up the drive, and either free/repair the stuck parts, or remove the platters (VERY CAREFULLY!), and replace them in the same order in an identical drive, the drive would have to be the same make, model, hardware revision, firmware, etc.
as always, more intel would help!

ps, should you try to attempt the above, all of the procedure must be done in a clean room enviroment or extremely sterile one, this also means absolutely not static electricity

pps: sorry if my grammer is a little crappy, its almost 2 in the morning as I'm writing this...

 

[Cromewell]

I would suggest not trying to move the platters to a same model working drive your self. Even some dust can potentially screw it up. I have seen people say that putting the drive in the freezer sometimes lets you get data off of it but I have never tried that and can't say that it wont make the situation worse.

If the drive has physically failed, your best bet is a recovery lab.