Click, click blue

Howdy folks, obviously I’m very green to this whole External Drive stuff so bare with me if I don’t use the right words or have any real idea what in the heck I’m trying to discribe.

I have a 1 TB western digital driver and it’s worked great

up until the other night, I was typing away in the drive to create some files to put some files into when my screen blipped out and then the window I was working in said stopped running or something then the window closed…

and now my computer doesn’t seem to regonize my external hard drive.

when I plug it into the computer, the blue thing will flash once on top then once on the bottom (Depending on how you’re looking at it I suppose).

this happens followed by some clicking noise, like it’s shifting.

I"m not 100% sure I am articulating this correctly, as I’m pressed for time and I really am in need of some sort of answer to this mistery, If I can I’ll come back and try to discribe it better, however, if anyone can work out what the problem is from this message, that’d be cool.

Could be head failure. Drives click when heads die. If data is important and must be recovered, I’d highly recommend not to power up this drive anymore to avoid any further damage to the platters. Skilled data recovery companies should be able to recover data for you.

If your drive is WD blue, those things are really bad with head issues, and usually end up with platter collisions.

This is what heads looked like on the drive that we got some time ago. :frowning: drive was clicking for a long time

you dont want that to happen to your disk, trust me

when I looked up this problem before that seemed to be the outcome, but however, it worked just fine for more than a month or so… **bleep** if not more… but it was unplugged for a few weeks maybe? - - I was in the middle of a move…

Before the move is when the clicking started and the blue light switching from top to bottom… then one day it just worked fine nothing seemed to be affected.

then one day some files couldn’t be accessed. then the next day the files where able to be accessed.

now, flash forward to after the move…

sound as a pound. No issues, then an odd thing happened, if I had my HDD hooked up to my computer then shut down my computer while it has the HDD connected to it, I’d get the blue crash screen on my laptop. but i’d correct it’s self if I unplugged the HDD from my laptop.

once I quit shutting down my laptop with my HDD connected to it, everything went back to normal. then as I noted I was just creating files on the HDD when the window closed out on me then my computer stopped reconizing the thing and it’s back to the old, click click act.

so right now if you connect it, it just constantly clicks?

Intermediate access to the drive should be a first warning to pull stuff out, even if the drive works fine with no issues after something like this never assume your drive is fine. 2 copies or bust.

alright… so I just plugged it back in to my lap top.

and the blue lights are shifting back and forth.

if I hold the HDD in my hand I can feel a shift back and forth…

now the blue light is solid and there isn’t any sound other than just the normal sound of it running. there isn’t any clicking.

but my computer still doesn’t recognize it. However, it is now saying that there is an F drive. (this driver was called G before the odd moment two days ago.)

and right now nothing is happening with the HDD. It’s just a solid blue light.

OKAY!!!

so an update…

the driver was doing it’s little blue light shuffle now it just stops and stays a solid blue… my computer STILL isn’t accepting  or recognizing the driver… seriously, what’s going on… I’m mega lost.