My secondary HDD wont start up.
 

It makes clicking noises and then it stops. It started doing this about a month ago. I temp. fixed the situation before by swapping it's power connector with another from my power supply. And now, it no matter what connector I use, it will no fully start up. It's like it's shorted out or something.

Is this what the mean by an HDD frying? It's only..5 months old.

This really sucks because all of my artwork is own that HDD. Also...my primary HDD is running low on space and that's why I had a whopping 75GB secondary.

It'd be a big help if someone went through this before and have a solution. 200+ avatars, anime images, wallpapers, movies, some mp3s are being held hostage as of now.

Have you tried the IDE cable that you use to connect your DVD/CD ROM to the motherboard with? It is worth a try, but sounds as if the HDD itself is dead or very close to dying. You could try the HDD in another PC if at all possible.
Other than that I don't think that there will be a way for you to recover all your artwork. I may be wrong about this, but I don't see how it would be possible if it won't start up properly.

If it's still 5 months, it still has warranty. You can try returning it and maybe they can replace it or extract the data from it. Or you can try attaching it to another PC (like Domino said). That's probably the best way to determine if it still works.

Tried it, no good. The only thing I have not tried is starting it up as the primary drive and I'm not doing that.

Coming clean and saying that I had this coming. My computer was not well designed to handle two HDD's. There's not even a drive bay for a second one. The secondary kinda just hangs in space suspended by the IDE cable and the power cord.

Well I will be buying a new computer anyway, so I'll keep the drive til then. My other older computer is a P1 133mhz, I dont think it will install it lol. Thanks for the help.

Edit: Warrenty... >.< It has no warrenty(I bought it from best buy and didn't wont to pay for one)

Damn.........

"Clicking noises" is the worse sign for HDD. It mean that HDD have some bad sector and it's not long for him to get crushed and all his data lost forever. I had it few month ago on my Western Digital 20. I was using it only to transfer data from PC to PC and one day he never turn again...

I advise you to make a full copy of it or of the most important data on it and just put it somewhere since electronic part of the HDD is still useful.

Sorry to tell you this.

Your HDD = dead.

The warranty is usually listed right on the hard drive itself by the manufacturer. I hope you still have some proof of purchase. If you do then you can just send it back to the manufacturer and get a new one for free.

My HDD is a Western Digital 20.

Bah, I'm going to buy a Quantum.

if still your HDD show on bios,try HDD Regenerator is last way to fix your HDD

I hear GRC's "SpinRite" utility works wonders for "lost causes". You won't be able to find a demo, but I'm sure copies of this $68 165kb utility won't be too hard to find for free :p

Ehh, not good. They broke fast just like Caviar drives. I had WD 80GB not long ago at work and after 2 weeks it just broke loosing all startup boot sectors. Worked as 2nd but never as 1st.

I advice buying Samsung or Seagate Barracuda.

SpinRite 6.0 R1:
this file iso burn it,will work as bootable disc

edit:
if you want documents for program:

http://www.bigupload.com/d=7E96D0CC

You people have no idea how much I appreciate this. My 2nd HDD does not show up in the bios while it is connected to the IDE cable, this includes Device Manager. I am not sure I want to spend 60+ on a program where it's required that the HDD has to be present in the bios(makes sense).

did you try to put your HDD alone?without other HDD.

If you're using IDE 80 Pin cable that it's highly possible that it just broke and that's why it doesn't see your HDD. Try to use other one or IDE 40 Pin cable. If it will not help then try to test it on other PC.

Here's an update...

I took the HDD to a shop. The hardrive is not useable. One of the arms in the case broke off. It would cost me 500$ to get a data retrieval. I decided to just toss it. He said that nothing(like tower falling, or a short circuit) has to happen for it to break, just that running at 7200RPMs forever(I never turn my PC off) will wear it down eventually.

I bought a new one today~ 120GB. I found out that more of my vital files I used to maintain my computer were on that drive. And my graphic program Photoshop 7(><).

Oh well, I'm buying a new computer come summer.