Tips for diagnose/backup dying Hard Drive?

[hctu]

Hi,

I have a 1 year old 2TB external Western Digital that I'm pretty sure is on it's last legs. Within the last week, when I access it, it seems like everything is coming to a standstill. For example, if I copy a small file out of the drive, it works OK if it only takes a few seconds. But, when the file copy takes more than 10 seconds or so, it just slowly grinds away and then times out. Booting up Windows now takes so long, I have to disconnect the drive.

What's the best way to backup anything now since I cannot copy out any larger sizeable files? Any recommendations for diagnose this? I used the diagnostic tool from the WD website and it doesn't recognize this as a physical drive, however, it does see it as a logical drive. The tool however does recognize my other external and system drive as a physical drive.

What can I do to save this data? Thank you all in advance.

[Jeff TYPE R]

Double ziplock bag it, put it in the freezer for awhile...then quickly plug it back in and transfer stuff out of it until it craps out again. Rinse and repeat.

[Swank]

^What he said...well without the rinse cycle.

When I ran into a similar issue a couple of years ago it turned out to be my power supply. It didn't have enough juice to spin the disk for long. Since replacing that, my 'failing' hard drive has been spinning away ever since. Disconnect the non-essentials (extra fans, USB hubs, fan controllers, bells/whistles etc) and see if the problem persist and if the drive works great at that point then it's likely a power problem.

[hctu]

Thank you both. I'll be trying those tips and we'll see what happens.