any hope for my drive?
 

I have a 120 GB IBM DEskstar that is not cooperating (unreadable).

I powered it outside the computer, and it spins up fine, but I hear a "ticking" sound, about once every 1,5 seconds, I think it is the motor for the head(s), as if the arm meets some form of resistance and tries again is there any hope of recovering data from it without paying a lot more than a new drive?

I guess it would depend on what you mean by "unreadable". If it is mounted and you cannot access data at all then you are likely out of luck. You may try a 'dd' to wholesale copy the bytes on the disk to another good disk, but again, if it is 'unreadable' then by definition you cannot read data from it. In any event, from your physical description of the disk even a dd may well be the straw that breaks your HDD's back...

Have you had a look at SMART?
http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/smart/

Might be a bit late for that now though.

I've experienced the same with a different brand disk. Apart from urban myths like putting the thing in the freezer for 24 hrs and placing it on it's side and gently tapping there's probably not much you can do as it is a hardware failure. If the drive contains irreplacable and valuable contents you will need to find a recovery company that does clean room ops (which start at aprox USD 1000 just so you know).

I first thought it was only one partition, but later realized it is the whole disk. I am not even sure it is detected. nothing happens on the computer when (dis)connecting the usb-to-ide cable, but the disk appears to notice (it stops ticking for a moment).

I'll try the freezing thing. since worst case is no effect, the risk is minimal.

tried that, no help.




not an option, a lot more than a new disk, and the data is not that irreplaceable.