Hard disk salvaging

[Clueless]

Hello all who know

Here is a problem with an almost new Seagate HDD.

I bought this drive in March this year, Barracuda 7200.10, Model
ST380215A, 80GB and it was working very well.

I got a Slax (KillBill) Linux CD and ran this from the CD itself and
was playing around with it. To ensure that nothing was written to the
hard disk I disconnected the drive and its power.

Alas, when I reconnected the HDD the bios itself does not recognize
the hard disk. It WAS working before I disconnected it. I also did not
physically remove the hard disk so there is no chance of a mechanical
damage.

The computer of course recognizes other hard disks when I put them on
so the problem is with the new hard disk only.

What could be the reason? How can I recover the hard disk short of
returning it to Seagate who provide a five year warranty for the
drive?

If I get an exactly similar hard disk and swap the circuit board will
it work - I assume the media must be still good and it may be only
some fault in the circuit board.

Please tell me what I can try.

ClueLess

 

[Hal Clark]

Hello all who know

Here is a problem with an almost new Seagate HDD.

I bought this drive in March this year, Barracuda 7200.10, Model
ST380215A, 80GB and it was working very well.

I got a Slax (KillBill) Linux CD and ran this from the CD itself and
was playing around with it. To ensure that nothing was written to the
hard disk I disconnected the drive and its power.

Alas, when I reconnected the HDD the bios itself does not recognize
the hard disk. It WAS working before I disconnected it. I also did not
physically remove the hard disk so there is no chance of a mechanical
damage.

The computer of course recognizes other hard disks when I put them on
so the problem is with the new hard disk only.

What could be the reason? How can I recover the hard disk short of
returning it to Seagate who provide a five year warranty for the
drive?

If I get an exactly similar hard disk and swap the circuit board will
it work - I assume the media must be still good and it may be only
some fault in the circuit board.

Please tell me what I can try.

ClueLess

The checking for a bent pin idea is a good one. They are very easy to bend
if you don't put the cable back on carefully. I know, I have done it. Did
you remove the jumper for any reason? Make sure it is back on properly.

 

[Meat Plow]

Hello all who know

Here is a problem with an almost new Seagate HDD.

I bought this drive in March this year, Barracuda 7200.10, Model
ST380215A, 80GB and it was working very well.

I got a Slax (KillBill) Linux CD and ran this from the CD itself and
was playing around with it. To ensure that nothing was written to the
hard disk I disconnected the drive and its power.

Alas, when I reconnected the HDD the bios itself does not recognize
the hard disk. It WAS working before I disconnected it. I also did not
physically remove the hard disk so there is no chance of a mechanical
damage.

The computer of course recognizes other hard disks when I put them on
so the problem is with the new hard disk only.

What could be the reason? How can I recover the hard disk short of
returning it to Seagate who provide a five year warranty for the
drive?

If I get an exactly similar hard disk and swap the circuit board will
it work - I assume the media must be still good and it may be only
some fault in the circuit board.

Please tell me what I can try.

ClueLess

Make sure the cable got plugged back in correctly/try a different cable.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello all who know

Here is a problem with an almost new Seagate HDD.

I bought this drive in March this year, Barracuda 7200.10, Model
ST380215A, 80GB and it was working very well.

I got a Slax (KillBill) Linux CD and ran this from the CD itself and
was playing around with it. To ensure that nothing was written to the
hard disk I disconnected the drive and its power.

Alas, when I reconnected the HDD the bios itself does not recognize
the hard disk. It WAS working before I disconnected it. I also did not
physically remove the hard disk so there is no chance of a mechanical
damage.

The computer of course recognizes other hard disks when I put them on
so the problem is with the new hard disk only.

What could be the reason? How can I recover the hard disk short of
returning it to Seagate who provide a five year warranty for the
drive?

If I get an exactly similar hard disk and swap the circuit board will
it work - I assume the media must be still good and it may be only
some fault in the circuit board.

Please tell me what I can try.

Did you unplug it under power? If so, you may have fried everything,
including the preamplifier inside the case. Then swapping a board
will not work at all.

I cannot think of any other way you could have damaged the
drive by unplugging it. Maybe the cables are defect?

Arno

 

[Vanguard]

in message

when I reconnected the HDD the bios itself does not recognize
the hard disk. It WAS working before I disconnected it. I also did not
physically remove the hard disk so there is no chance of a mechanical
damage.

Did you plug the power tap back into the hard drive? Although the 3-pin
Molex connector (male and female) is polarized, it is still possible
with force to plug it in upside down. That means the 12V line connected
to the 5V pin and fried some parts. Yes, it is possible to replace the
PCB with another from the same brand and model of hard drive but don't
expect a miracle. Often there are tweaks to adjust the standard
designed PCB for that model to the individual mechanicals of the drive.

Do you even hear the hard drive spin up (like a jet engine whine) when
power is applied to the hard drive? It you don't hear it spin up then
there is a power problem (no power, bad connections, loose wires or poor
crimps inside the connectors, or reversed orientation). You won't get
anything from the hard drive unless it spins.

It was necessary to physically detached the drive. You said that that
drive was not physically removed from the computer but it appears that
you did yank the cables off of that device. You could have just entered
the BIOS and disabled the port to which the hard drive was connected (if
the CD/DVD drive was also on that port then you would have had to move
it to another port so you could disable the controller for that port for
the hard drive). In yanking the cables, especially those that don't
provide pull tabs which means there is a good chance that you pulled on
the cable itself instead of the connectors, problems could be: the wires
in the cable are not longer attached to the pins in the connectors, you
put the cables back on in the wrong orientation or the orientation isn't
the same on both ends (i.e., pin 1 in the hard drive's connector should
get connected to pin 1 on the motherboard connector but one end on the
cable is reversed), you smashed down a pin inside the drive's connector
or in the motherboard's connector or maybe 1 pin got bent out of the way
so it doesn't slide into the connector, foreign matters lodged in the
connector which prevents the connector from sliding down far enough to
ensure the female connector in the cable mates with the male pin in the
header. So you'll have to open the box and check the connections, make
sure they are oriented correctly, and perhaps try with a new cable in
case the old one got damaged.

ClueLess

<snip - followed by 43 blank lines>

Yep, got that from the excessive whitespace at the end of your post. I
thought Forte Agent was supposed to be a good NNTP client.

 

[Pennywise]

f I get an exactly similar hard disk and swap the circuit board will
it work - I assume the media must be still good and it may be only
some fault in the circuit board.

It should work, worked once for me.

 

[Clueless]

Hi everybody

Thanks to all of you for helping me with ideas for salvaging the hard
disk. I have already tried every thing - no bent pins, no reversed
power plug, no problem with the data cable etc.

The computer recognized another hard disk so it is not the problem
with the computer too.

Mechanical damage is ruled out as I did not remove the hard disk from
the computer.

When I rebooted the bios did not recognize the hard disk - perhaps
indicating some circuitry has failed rather than a media error.

And when I power the hard disk now it whirrs as usual. So no damage to
the spin drive system

It now points to switching the circuit board and I hope I succeed as
much as Pennywise

I will come back as soon I lay hands on a similar hard disk.

Thanks again

ClueLess