Data Recovery

[MrComputerSaint]

So, I have a 160GB Sata WD hard drive that seems to have given up.
My friend had it in his laptop and "it just turned off" then it came up with no boot device, please insert boot disk.

So I've tried to plug it into my USB docking station and windows does not even recognise that it's plugged in.

It does make a noise as if the head is going one way and then the other for half a second each way.

If it's not being discovered by bios or being plugged in via USB caddy/ docking station - I'm coming to the conclusion that the hard drive is knackered.

Any other things I could try?

[shaithis]

As long as windows not recognising it means that it doesn't even show in device manager.......

Without going through an extremely costly data recovery (which is so expensive, the data on there must be quite valuable to even consider), your best bet would be to get
an identical drive and swap the logic boards over and hope that was the problem.

[chrisFletcher]

As long as windows not recognising it means that it doesn't even show in device manager.......

Without going through an extremely costly data recovery (which is so expensive, the data on there must be quite valuable to even consider), your best bet would be to get
an identical drive and swap the logic boards over and hope that was the problem.

Shaithis is right, windows won't necessarily show the drive in in Computer/My Computer. If it shows up in Device Manager though it may need mounting in Administrative Tools->Computer Management.
It doesn't sound hopeful though...