#2 HD won't boot

[jeffreyH]

I installed a 2nd hard drive a couple years ago, Serial ATA. Model is WDC. Worked fine. Now it won't show up on the desktop when I startup. It clicks 5 times, then is silent for a few seconds. Repeats this for about a minute then nothing.

When Drive #1 finishes booting up, I get a window asking if I want to INITIALIZE or IGNORE. I'm ignoring it for now since I'm hoping to save the files I have on it.

Disk Utilities sometimes "sees" this drive (not very often); sometimes it does not. When it does see it, any Repair or Verify buttons are gray.

System Profiler does let me "see" that the drive is there. That's where I got the model.

Any ideas on how I can repair this drive w/o resorting to formatting it again?

PowerMac G5 running OS 10.4.11

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[old-wiz]

If it's clicking and not showing up, the drive is probably dying.
do you have a backup?

 

[Sayer]

Nothing lasts forever. If it has stuff on it you HAVE to get to, and don't have backups (bad idea) then you need to send it to a data recovery company and see if they can get into it.

 

[marco114]

yes don't try using software. you will only damage it further. right now, you have a decent chance of getting the data back by using a company

drivesavers is a popular place and quite capable.