Freezer didn't help. Same thing this morning. Maybe it wasn't in there long enough. More likely it's DEAD.

But the recovery partition still works?

dd the whole device to an image.

Seems to. I could access the files in the recovery partition from Linux. The other partition showed the size and space used but couldn't shoe any contents.

Worth a try making an image. I'll try and find a HDD large enough when I get home and see if it will work.

Data could well be in tact just the FAT is damaged (if it still works like that for NTFS).

I think if that's all it was then GetDataBack would have done something. The drive is making funny noises too which definitely isn't a good sign.

Sounds like physical damage to actuator(s) and/or platter(s).

Definitely looks (and sounds) that way. I don't think there's much I can do with it :(

Can you run a mfg diagnostic on it, or get smart info?

Try spinrite at grc.com also available by Jim, I've had some success rescuing disks even encrypted ones.

Looks interesting. Worth a try. Thanks.

It's a Hitachi drive. Not sure if their fitness test program is going to be much help.

Maybe try Hitachi's seatools, it worked for us once when recovering a drive, but that wasn't hardware related. :/

FWIW I had two desktop hdds (apparently) fail in that my pc was rendered unbootable with them (it wouldn't even post), and they made loud clicking noises.

However after I stuck them in usb enclosures they are completely accessible, including all ntfs and linux partitions, and no data was lost. Also, no clicking.

One was a Seagate and the other WD.

I still have them on tap, as backups of all the 'dispensible' stuff I couldn't be bothered to copy over to the replacement. TBH I think my motherboard could have been the culprit moreso than the actual drives. The most recent hdd has been running a bit longer than the other two did, without the issue manifesting so far.

I'm creeping myself out even typing this.  :-@

SpinRite is going really slowly. Been running a couple of hours now and only read about 16MB of 240GB. Gonna take a while. I wonder if it will help though.

Fucking /WONDERFUL/!!! :@ I spilled wine over my laptop's keyboard and screen! Luckily only a little bit got between the display and case. Washed the keyboard, gonna give it a bit of time to dry out before using it.

Have you removed the battery to be safe?

Came home to my biannual can' t boot grubs hosed and maybe so's the partition table. After the usual ministrations all came up good. Then I nearly drenched the keyboard attempting to pour an ice-choked can of IPA into an ill-judged glass. This ain't even Fri 13th. On the good side I subsequently beat the gangsters in the Dead Island supermarket & picked up an M16-alike for my troubles.

It does take a long time, that's the dynastat process trying to extract some sensible data from each sector, I had one drive take 14 hours, but I did get the data back though,

I tried but it kept slapping my hands away telling me it didn't want to be turned off.

At this rate its going to take a few of years. It's still only at 0.1%. Hopefully it'll get past a bad bit and speed up, we will see. I'll be amazed if it can recover something.