hardrive failure

[usher]

I have a 80 gig maxtor drive which has failed & appears dead. This drive has info that I need to salvage
Enquiries at my local PC shop inform that it could cost £400 upwards to salvage the data etc. I opened the drive up & was surprised that the interior is similar to DVD /CD drive with a large silver disc. is it not simply a case of removing this disk & fitting it in another maxtor drive that I could buy for around £60 ? is it more complicated than that ? need advice before I open buy & open up another drive

 

[Dio]

If you've opened the airtight seal around the platters, the chances of recovering anything without sending it to the pros are approximately nil. Some people have had success swapping controller boards, but if you've let dust get inside then as soon as you start the drive I would expect it to head crash and destroy more data and/or the heads.

Calculate how much the data's worth. If it's less than £200 then I'd give up. More than £500, data recovery will still probably get most of it back. In between is a tough call.

I remind everyone of the fundamental maxim "If it's not backed up, it wasn't important." Live by it.

 

[usher]

I have the means to reassemble in a dustfree booth, is the controller board you mention easily available ? Nothing on the drive is desperately required, just thought it would be interesting to attempt its repair one way or another

 

[usher]

I just thought I would mention that I do back up my important files on a second drive, & this is is the one that is now defunct

 

[Guden Oden]

You could swap out the discs, but it's an EXTREMELY delicate process on any drive that do not have head unload ramps like the IBM/Hitachi Deskstar series of drives. Likely you don't have to though as you probably fried the logic board. There's a little bit of circuitry inside the drive too, and if that is dead you have as many problems as if trying to swap discs.

The problem is you must get the heads off the discs without:

A - bending or otherwise damaging the head suspensions (the flexible pieces of metal at the end of the actuator/arm assembly. This is very difficult as heads stick almost like glue to the disc surface except at the landing zone at the very center of the disc. This is because the discs and heads are extremely flat and with little to none in the way of lubrication on either in order to minimize fly-height above the disc when spinning.

B - scratching or fingerprinting the disc. Touching the disc surface IN ANY WAY even when wearing gloves will severely contaminate/disturb the surface and could at best cause partial dataloss at that spot, at worst total dataloss and/or cause head/disc collisions. Did I mention the heads fly extremely close to the disc?

C - allowing the heads to touch anything or each other once you managed to lift them off the disc surface. If this happens you're fucked as you'll either scratch them or deposit debris on them or zap them with static electricity. Millivolts is enough to kill a read/write head, says those in the know.

I bought a compact flash reader and a 256MB flashcard recently to hold my most critical and irreplacible data. You should think of something similar, and/or using a program like Synchback to backup your stuff for example to your free webspace on the internet.

 

[usher]

thanks for that Guden, I guess you are telling me that maybe it is best to relegate the drive to the scrapheap !
I don't think I will go to the expence/ risk of opening another drive to swap disks, didn't realise the actual disk itself is far more delicate than a DVD etc & I have already probably knackered it as I have touched the surface. Thanks anyway guys for info

 

[karlotta]

depending on what /how it died the old trick was/IS to put the HDD in the freezer for 20min or so then reinstall , the damm drive will fire up and you hurry and get your info before the death again.

 

[usher]

is this for real ? might this work? can't see how freezing might restart the drive but might give it a go, anyone else heard of this ??

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

is this for real ? might this work? can't see how freezing might restart the drive but might give it a go, anyone else heard of this ??

I've used a bag of frozen peas as a heatsink on an overheating drive in order to get the data copied off it. However, if you've opened the drive and exposed the platters to air, it's already knackered.