I have a Maxtor One Touch III that I purchased about 5 years ago, and i use it with a unibody Macbook Pro. About a month ago, the hard drive stop being detected by my computer. Then I noticed that instead of the button in front of the unit flashing rather quickly, now it would only blink about once every 5-7 seconds, and instead of the gentle hum, it now makes a slow clicky noise that clicks as often as the light blinks. Basically it's doing what it used to do when it worked, only now it's only going half as fast. I've tried plugging it in with the FireWire and USB ports to no avail. I pretty much have everything of importance on that hard drive, as well as it being my Time Machine drive. I have limited knowledge of external hard drives, especially of one that's as dated as mine is. Anyone have any thoughts? I had been meaning to buy a new drive anyways, I just need to know what's the safest, cheapest way to get all the data that's on the Maxtor, into my computer/another hard drive?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Maxtor One Touch III just died...now what?
- Thread starter captions87
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Do you need data recovery or do you just need to know what to buy so you can transfer? I'm not sure I can decipher from your post.
As far as cheapest, data recovery is not cheap. You get what you pay for in that arena as far as I'm concerned. What is the best drive? They all fail, some more than others. I'm a fan of Western Digital and wouldn't touch an Deskstar or something from that line with anything since all that I have owned have failed. LaCie failed me as well and their customer service was terrible. They took a 7-month old drive with a 1 year warranty and told me to kick rocks. I don't waste my time or money on them any longer. That could change.
To each is own on drives, I just prefer WD and next to that Seagate. I prefer a barebones drive with an enclosure but OWC seems to have some decent packages. I do have an OWC Mercury Elite Pro that I bought second hand from here that has served me well. Of course my luck and embarrassment would be if I opened it and it was a Deskstar.
As far as cheapest, data recovery is not cheap. You get what you pay for in that arena as far as I'm concerned. What is the best drive? They all fail, some more than others. I'm a fan of Western Digital and wouldn't touch an Deskstar or something from that line with anything since all that I have owned have failed. LaCie failed me as well and their customer service was terrible. They took a 7-month old drive with a 1 year warranty and told me to kick rocks. I don't waste my time or money on them any longer. That could change.
To each is own on drives, I just prefer WD and next to that Seagate. I prefer a barebones drive with an enclosure but OWC seems to have some decent packages. I do have an OWC Mercury Elite Pro that I bought second hand from here that has served me well. Of course my luck and embarrassment would be if I opened it and it was a Deskstar.
Five years is about right for the life of a consumer HDD. You could try putting it in a new enclosure but it's more likely that the HDD has failed.
The cost of professional data recovery is very expensive.
The cost of professional data recovery is very expensive.
Chances are, and I am talking close to a 100% chance, that the controller burned out but the HD is fine.I've had at least a dozen of these incidents in the past. Out of those 12 only one was a clicking HD and absolute death. Remove the HD and go to Fry's and get an enclosure so you can easily return it if the drive is indeed bad.
As for data recovery... hope you have some bucks. SERIOUS bucks.
As for data recovery... hope you have some bucks. SERIOUS bucks.