Hi,
Just as I was going to back up my 1.5TB drive to my other, identical
drive I dropped it while spinning. It was in a case and did not hit
hard yet it won't spin up any more. I MUST get the data off it. When I
plug it in it beeps (buzzes) periodically but does not spin up. There
are no dents or any signs of damage? Any ideas how to save the data?
My last resort will be to back up the second drive then open both
drives and pull the discs off the good drive and put the discs of the
dropped drive inside and hope it will work. I realize I don't have a
clean room but perhaps I can do it anyway. This is just the last
resort. I hope some of you might have another ingenious idea to get it
to spin up. Thank you very much. Karotto

karotto wrote:

> Just as I was going to back up my 1.5TB drive to my other, identical
> drive I dropped it while spinning. It was in a case and did not hit
> hard yet it won't spin up any more. I MUST get the data off it. When
> I plug it in it beeps (buzzes) periodically but does not spin up. There
> are no dents or any signs of damage? Any ideas how to save the data?

The first thing to check is whether the hard drive itself
is whats failed or whether its just the enclosure or
something as basic as a cable coming off etc.

Its much more likely to be the drive tho, particularly with
a drive of that size which means it cant be a 2.5" drive.

> My last resort will be to back up the second drive then open both
> drives and pull the discs off the good drive and put the discs of the
> dropped drive inside and hope it will work.

It would be better to swap the whole drive between enclosures first.
That way you can check for a cable that has become unplugged and
can test whether its the drive or the enclosure that has failed if it isnt
just a cable that has become unplugged etc.

> I realize I don't have a clean room but perhaps I can do it anyway.

No chance with a drive of that size.

> This is just the last resort.

It would be better to use professional recovery if the data matters.
It isnt necessarily outrageously expensive.
http://www.retrodata.co.uk/

> I hope some of you might have another ingenious
> idea to get it to spin up. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I did all that. even swapped the circuit board with my
other drive. No avail!

karotto wrote:
> Thank you. I did all that. even swapped the circuit board with my
> other drive. No avail!

OK, dont try swapping the platters, that will just ruin the good drive as well.

karotto <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Hi,
> Just as I was going to back up my 1.5TB drive to my other, identical
> drive I dropped it while spinning. It was in a case and did not hit
> hard yet it won't spin up any more. I MUST get the data off it. When I
> plug it in it beeps (buzzes) periodically but does not spin up. There
> are no dents or any signs of damage? Any ideas how to save the data?
> My last resort will be to back up the second drive then open both
> drives and pull the discs off the good drive and put the discs of the
> dropped drive inside and hope it will work. I realize I don't have a
> clean room but perhaps I can do it anyway. This is just the last
> resort. I hope some of you might have another ingenious idea to get it
> to spin up. Thank you very much. Karotto

If you MUST have the date then do the following:

1. Stop messing with it, you are causeing additional damage.
2. Contact a reputed data recovery provider, NOT the cheapest.
There are more than a few black speep in that market.
Example: Kroll-Ontrack
Get a quote. Expect >> 1000 EUR/USD
3. Hope for the best.

Side note: If you open it without the right tools and experiences,
you chances are slim indeed. Likely you will also cause head-crashes
and those make professional recovery far, far more expensive or
impossible.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: (E-Mail Removed)
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

karotto <(E-Mail Removed)> kenjka:
> Just as I was going to back up my 1.5TB drive to my other, identical
> drive I dropped it while spinning. It was in a case and did not hit
> hard yet it won't spin up any more. I MUST get the data off it. When I
> plug it in it beeps (buzzes) periodically but does not spin up. There
> are no dents or any signs of damage? Any ideas how to save the data?
> My last resort will be to back up the second drive then open both
> drives and pull the discs off the good drive and put the discs of the
> dropped drive inside and hope it will work. I realize I don't have a
> clean room but perhaps I can do it anyway. This is just the last
> resort. I hope some of you might have another ingenious idea to get it
> to spin up. Thank you very much. Karotto

No spinup and just beeping? Don't know much about it, if it produces the
buzzing sound (bzzzzt-bzzzzt-bzzzt) then the preamplifier has been detached
from the inner board...

But if no spinup, then I can't tell you what's wrong...

Can you hold that drive in your hand while turning it on and see if it
produces a momentum as the platters spin up?

BTW., when turning electronic boards, it must be done when the drive is
powered on... So, you get the drive that is working, boot in Windows with
it... Put it to sleep, replace hard drive enclosure with mechanical parts
(DO NOT DEATTACH THE ELECTRONICS!!!), and then get it out of sleep... The
problem is that some of drive information is written in zero-track and is
red only during POST process, so the drive electronics cold-swapping won't
work...

If your drive can spin up from sleep, than it's possible for you to get the
data out of it... If it still can't spin up, then you'll need some HDD
recovery service...

You'll also need a third drive that will be used to copy the data from the
dead one once it's brought back to life...


--
Majmuncica kara crven kamionog gladija prekjucer. By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:52:33 -0800 (PST), karotto
<(E-Mail Removed)> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>Hi,
>Just as I was going to back up my 1.5TB drive to my other, identical
>drive I dropped it while spinning. It was in a case and did not hit
>hard yet it won't spin up any more. I MUST get the data off it. When I
>plug it in it beeps (buzzes) periodically but does not spin up. There
>are no dents or any signs of damage? Any ideas how to save the data?
>My last resort will be to back up the second drive then open both
>drives and pull the discs off the good drive and put the discs of the
>dropped drive inside and hope it will work. I realize I don't have a
>clean room but perhaps I can do it anyway. This is just the last
>resort. I hope some of you might have another ingenious idea to get it
>to spin up. Thank you very much. Karotto

If the drive was dropped whilst it was spinning, then it may have
suffered a head crash, which means that there will most likely be
media damage, or head damage, or both. Very often the spindle motor
bearing is seized. Replacing the motor is a major job. :-(

Here are some sound samples from failed drives:

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

http://web.archive.org/web/200510160...c?OpenDocument

There is a slim chance that the failure to spin up is due to stiction,
if the heads have come to rest on a smooth section of the platters
rather than their normal landing area.

See this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.