The other day, my computer (2 HDDs) wouldn't boot. I tracked it to my backup drive, a 2TB Seagate Barracuda, with a platter. Unplugged it, and the other drive booted fine, but found that the 2TB was rather hot to the touch. Not good. Did some research, found the dreaded "clicking", that is, the read arm skipping and resetting as it failed to read - and apparently grinding scratches across the 1s and 0s as it went. Confirmed it on another computer (with a quieter fan, so that I could hear the clicking). The drive (and all my backups!) are most likely gone, but the only possibility the internet gave me of even a hope of recovering anything was sending it to a specialist in data recovery, which the sources stated would NOT be cheap, and also not be guaranteed, bordering on not worth it based on the probability that the HDD platter was scratched from the read arm skipping on it, and that the data is destroyed.
Thoughts? Other options?
Thanks, all.