When I turn it on, it makes a beeping noise and the LED flashes continuously. This is my back-up drive but it holds a lot of files which I can’t replace. Help is appreciated- thanks!!

The External Box is (http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-2-5-SATA-HARD-DISK-DRIVE-CASE-Enclosure-New_W0QQitemZ190326586909QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item2c50593e1d&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14) and my drive is a Toshiba MK 163GSX, P/N 440640-001.

The pins do not connect.

This is driving me crazy.

My father brought home a 40GB hard-drive from work that wouldn’t power-up. After taking it out of it’s enclosure I was able to make it spin up and work again using a 2-amp internal/external hard-drive power supply. It made a screach and slowly spun up but seems to work. I have Vista and it says I should scan for errors…but I don’t know if that’s just because it’s Vista or if there’s really a problem…I don’t want to make a bad situation worse by scanning for errors.

I recovered most of the data to DVD (the most important 2GB worth, the rest was too big to stage on my drives). I put it back in the enclosure, it works in the enclosure now too. I know it’s very bad for drives to make noises and recommend they replace it and destroy the old drive. I’m trying to give him a idea of it’s life expectancy (they may not be able to afford a replacment…don’t ask, I don’t know why) but I can’t find any diagnastic tools that can read/test through the USB and I don’t have any way of connecting it internally (it’s a laptop size ATA-IDE drive) to run the tests that way.

The enclosure it came in is a Lacie USB 2.0 type; the drive is a 40GB Samsnug 2.5" ATA-IDE disk.

Any suggestions besides windows disk-check?

I have HDTune but it says it can’t access the SMART data.
As I said…it’s not mine – I would (and could) replace it if it was mine…heck, I wouldn’t get a 40gb drive I’d use that to upgrade…

The finances of his office are none of my business, I’m just trying to give them an answer about the drive’s life expectancy.