Dead HD

[Basic]

I just had a shortcut in a power cord to a fan in my PC. 12 V connected to GND in a glitch. The PC rebooted. But I saw smoke directly, so I turned it off quickly with the button on the back of the PC. Checked all wires, and turned it on again.

But the HD was completely dead. I turned it off again, unplugged the HD, and the controller card on it was charred. DOH! That was a bit unexpected.

Most of the data on it was backed up, but not everything. And I think it's worth some money to save it. But not as much as a proffesional HD rescue operation would cost.
I was thinking of getting a new HD and switch the controller card, but I can't find the exact same model.
My HD:
Maxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 120 GB IDE

The two closest alternatives I can find are:
Maxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 80 GB IDE - 479 SKr
Maxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 120 GB SATA - 681+125 SKr

The 80 GB is easily available in a nearby store, and a lot cheaper. So I would prefer to get that one if it works. But I guess that it's more likely that it works with the 120 GB. It's possible that a controller card from a 80 GB HD won't see the third disk. But I think that it shouldn't matter if it's an IDE or SATA interface.

Have anyone here tried something like this? Do you know if the controller card is the same regardless of the size (within the same series)?

 

[MatiasZ]

I assume you would need to reflash the firmware on the controller in order to detect the correct size of the drive.. and it could be a little dangerous to swap it for a different one, although I'm not 100% sure about that... Try and see if someone has a drive that matches yours, and you can borrow it (previously backing up the data of course) and use the same model... I have never tried it myself but I assume the same model should work... (yes, I know this post wasn't of much use, I'm sory)

 

[Malo]

WHen I used to work as a PC tech I managed to fix a fair few HDs this way by swapping controllers. However I only ever did it with the same controller card. Had about a 80% success rate when I knew it was the controller the cause of the fault.

 

[Basic]

Thanks for the replies.

MatiasZ:
Yes, it's something like that I'm worried about for the 80GB. I think the controllers are identical physically, and the only thing differing might be some firmware parameters. But I think it can be hard to find a flash file for a HD.

But sometimes firmware is made plug'n playable on internal interfaces, just to make logistics easier. And I was hoping for someone to say that that's the case here. :smile:


Kalbaz:
Good to know that it at least can work that way. One slight worry was that there could be tuning parameters of some sort in a flash on the controler. Then it would be impossible to switch to any other controller, even for the same model.

 

[Guden Oden]

Harddrives sometimes (often? usually?) store at least part of their firmware on the platters themselves in a reserved data area, supposedly because that's much cheaper than sticking flash memory on the board to hold it all. I would think any tuning parameters which would be individual from drive to drive would also be stored in a place like that.

Anyway, if the controller board fried, there's at least a chance the preamp inside the drive itself also fried. In which case your drive would stay dead even if you replace the board...

In any case, I wouldn't advise you switching the board with that of another capacity, even just to test things out, the drive might get confused and could possibly overwrite important information, who knows. Not worth taking the risk IMO. Take more time and try to find an identical model drive instead, your data won't get into any worse a position than it already is.

 

[Basic]

Yes, I've heard that some parts of the firmware is stored on the platters. But if there were any tuning parameters, they'd have to be stored in flash. That's because if there were need for any tuning parameters, you'd need them to read them from the platters. (Bad form of chicken and egg story.)

But I just spoke to the local computer store/repair, and luckily there doesn't seem to be any such parameters. And the guy I spoke to even said that typically, there's no problem to use the controller card from a HD of differently size as long as it's in the same series. He had done it several times.

And even better is that a friend actually had the exact right drive at home. He were just about to get a new HD, and I can borrow his old HD as soon as he's backed up what's on it.

I'm aware that there's a risk that more stuff inside the HD is broken. But since this seemed to be a breakdown from undervoltage, I'm more hopeful that the bad voltages haven't gone all the way to the internal parts. I'll know in a few days.

Me, I'll get myself a nice upgrade to 250GB and SATA.

 

[Basic]

Update:

I borrowed the friends HD, and switched controller card. The good part is that I could see the the HD in BIOS. The bad part is that the size was reported as 0 GB. So I consider the HD dead, and accept that I won't see that data again. AFAIK I've got all my personal pictures backed up, so I've at least not lost those. But I think I've lost some software I've written, and it was a lot longer since I backed up my email folder than what I first thought.

Well, well, I guess I need to be more careful with backups in the future.


Oh, the friend also had a 80 GB version of the HD, but it seems as the computer repair guy didin't know what he was talking about. Judging from the case at least, it clearly looks like the 120 GB version has more platters.

 

[Humus]

Well, well, I guess I need to be more careful with backups in the future.

If you lost something important, I guess it could sink in. Personally I've had at least one disk die from every major brand out there, but I'm still not taking backups other than immediately after the fact. My only real backup would be the files I have on my server, so at least my projects would be save no matter what, but other than that I think it was more than a year since I burned a backup disc of anything. So far I've never really lost anything of value, I've always been able to save my data prior to the fact or restore it in one way or another. I guess I've been lucky.

 

[_xxx_]

My HD:
Maxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 120 GB IDE

We had many threads on such topics and it's almost always Maxtor crap going bad. I lost three Maxtor HDD's over the last few years.

One thing to remember: don't buy Maxtor, the quality is abysmal.

 

[Guden Oden]

but I'm still not taking backups other than immediately after the fact.

Heh. True.

I really don't have much I wouldn't mind parting with. There's my old Amiga pictures and soundtracker modules and the stories I've written, but I got those stashed away on a flash card, and all the funny/weird/nonsensical pics I've collected off the web over the years (that aren't stashed away on a flash card ). Other than that, well, my WoW avatars are stored online, so they're relatively safe I think!