A couple of years ago I was discussing with a chum CD/DVD disks saying I had been using these for storing files and pictures but over the years some of them would no longer open on my desktop hence I had lost everything on the disks?
My chum suggested I buy an external HDD and use this for backing up so I bought a Seagate 1TB and backed up to this trusting it only for it to fail taking the data with it. I visited a local computer shop and the guy tried a new enclosure for the faulty HDD but without luck although I was told the actual HDD was working OK so I could install it directly into my desktop which I did and now I was very pleased to have access to the data once again. Then suddenly the HDD started to click quite badly and again the HDD failed but I hadn't had the time to back up so thought now for certain the lot had gone for good. Pulling the desk out to gain access to the tower isn't my idea of fun so I disliked having to install then remove the wayward HDD; the HDD has been stored for a few months and I since bought a 128GB SSD for backing up which so far is proving reliable but I'm now triple backing up to memory sticks as well.
I've been browsing the web and eBay looking at computer items and came across HDD docking stations which were new to me so I've just bought one and it arrived yesterday dinnertime; the one I bought can be seen here;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261492757909? ... EBIDX%3AIT
I've also been watching YouTube videos showing how to recover data on these clicking HDD's but I didn't want to keep installing the HDD into the tower so here was a very good cheap solution. Using the docking station is incredibly easy; simply plug and play with my computer running Win7. I didn't expect much but I plugged in the docking station and inserted the faulty HDD then switched on; I was absolutely amazed as the HDD spun up without fuss and this time I was prepared; no way was I going to risk switching the docking station off so I immediately backed up to the main computer HDD then I also backed up to the external SSD and now with the data securely backed up I dared to switch the docking station off; as I type I'm now backing up the same data to memory sticks.
A clicking HDD is very bad news and usually means the HDD is scrap so I'm over the moon to have retrieved the data from my clicking HDD but I confess it did upset me a great deal to think I had lost 27.5 GB of files with over 9,000 images.
I wasn't aware these docking stations existed so hope this information is of use; I'm not in any way saying these docking stations will cure all clicking or faulty HDD's and perhaps I just got lucky but at the price these docking stations are an excellent way of connecting an HDD to a computer without having to pull the computer to bits?
Just passing on a bit of information.
Kind regards, Col.