Hard Drive Repair Question Physical Problem with the drive

[jmDesktop]

Maxtor 40 GB ide hard drive ata 133 3.5 N 40P. Spins, but I get no
OS. I took it out put it in another PC, will not show up as a second
drive (I changed it to be the slave.) I also have a usb to ide
adapter. The drive is recognized by xp pro and I can see it in the
device manager, but I cannot see it in disk manager or windows
explorer. I am sure it is probably hardware failure, but hoped
someone might have some idea how to fix it.

Drive spins and continues to spin. When I first put power to it I
hear a momentary click or some physical movement inside the drive, but
not after that.

Thanks for any help. I know it may be a lost cause.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Maxtor 40 GB ide hard drive ata 133 3.5 N 40P. Spins, but I get no
OS. I took it out put it in another PC, will not show up as a second
drive (I changed it to be the slave.) I also have a usb to ide
adapter. The drive is recognized by xp pro and I can see it in the
device manager, but I cannot see it in disk manager or windows
explorer. I am sure it is probably hardware failure, but hoped
someone might have some idea how to fix it.

Drive spins and continues to spin. When I first put power to it I
hear a momentary click or some physical movement inside the drive, but
not after that.

Thanks for any help. I know it may be a lost cause.

This sounds like a problem with the data on disk. What happened to
make it inaccessible?

One thing you can do, is to get its SMART status. You might also
just try to repartition, if you do not care about the data on disk.

Arno

 

[bealoid]

Drive spins and continues to spin. When I first put power to it I
hear a momentary click or some physical movement inside the drive, but
not after that.

Drives often have a hardware latch to "park" the heads outside the
disk platters, or on the inside of the disk platters. Sometimes the
latch fails, so the drive spins up but the heads can't move.

If you must get data from the disk you can take the lid off, and tape
the latch open, and use recovery software to get data off the disc.
Obviously, the disc is trashed after this.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Drives often have a hardware latch to "park" the heads outside the
disk platters, or on the inside of the disk platters. Sometimes the
latch fails, so the drive spins up but the heads can't move.

If you must get data from the disk you can take the lid off, and tape
the latch open, and use recovery software to get data off the disc.
Obviously, the disc is trashed after this.

Or even before....

Arno

 

[jmDesktop]

Drives often have a hardware latch to "park" the heads outside the
disk platters, or on the inside of the disk platters. Sometimes the
latch fails, so the drive spins up but the heads can't move.

If you must get data from the disk you can take the lid off, and tape
the latch open, and use recovery software to get data off the disc.
Obviously, the disc is trashed after this.

What do you mean "tape the latch open?"

 

[jmDesktop]

This sounds like a problem with the data on disk. What happened to
make it inaccessible?

One thing you can do, is to get its SMART status. You might also
just try to repartition, if you do not care about the data on disk.

Arno

I do care about the data. It's not the drive. I don't care about
that. I can buy another one. I don't know what happened to it. A
week before I was getting a blank screen while some programs ran and
other times I would try and wake up the PC and just have my blank
screen. The machine was running, but nothing would happen. Finally,
I got the no OS on the system or insert boot media, etc.

How do I get the SMART status? I can see information about the drive
in the device manager and can populate information about it.

Thanks again.

 

[bealoid]

What do you mean "tape the latch open?"

Have a look at some of the pictures on this website:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/

Looking at the head stacks you'll see a delicate end, over the
platters. Then there's a pivot. Then you'll see a chunky metal end.
This has big magnets, coils, ribbon cables, and maybe a plastic latch
thing.

Sometimes the electronics that open the latch break. This means that
the heads can't swing out over the platters. You can take the lid off
the drive, and open the latch, and hold it open by a piece of tape,
then connect the drive to a pc and power it up.

This is a last ditch effort to get data off the drive. You'll
probably need data recovery software.


I've only done this once. I was lucky, I got my data back. I learnt
that back ups are always easier.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Have a look at some of the pictures on this website:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/

Looking at the head stacks you'll see a delicate end, over the
platters. Then there's a pivot. Then you'll see a chunky metal end.
This has big magnets, coils, ribbon cables, and maybe a plastic latch
thing.

Sometimes the electronics that open the latch break. This means that
the heads can't swing out over the platters. You can take the lid off
the drive, and open the latch, and hold it open by a piece of tape,
then connect the drive to a pc and power it up.

This is a last ditch effort to get data off the drive. You'll
probably need data recovery software.

I've only done this once. I was lucky, I got my data back. I learnt
that back ups are always easier.

Sorry - you have totally lost me on this one.


Odie

 

[Arno Wagner]

I do care about the data. It's not the drive. I don't care about
that. I can buy another one. I don't know what happened to it. A
week before I was getting a blank screen while some programs ran and
other times I would try and wake up the PC and just have my blank
screen. The machine was running, but nothing would happen. Finally,
I got the no OS on the system or insert boot media, etc.

How do I get the SMART status? I can see information about the drive
in the device manager and can populate information about it.

E.g. sisoft sandra or the smartmontools candisplay the smart status.
Best read it and post it here.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Sorry - you have totally lost me on this one.

Me too. The drives I opened (broken or not needed anymore)
had no ''electronics that open the latch''. Maybe a WD
invention? I never opened (or owned) one of those...

Arno

 

[bealoid]

Sorry - you have totally lost me on this one.

Have a look at the images on this website:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/

Perhaps I should say "head load/unload" systems?

 

[Arno Wagner]

Have a look at the images on this website:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/

Perhaps I should say "head load/unload" systems?

All disks I have opened in the past few year used the magnetic variant.
No head ''load/unload zone''.

Arno

 

[Aidan Karley]

Me too. The drives I opened (broken or not needed anymore)
had no ''electronics that open the latch''. Maybe a WD
invention? I never opened (or owned) one of those...

I had an ESDI drive at work the best part of 20 years ago which
did have a latch on the head array. Latch failed ; heads stuck ; drive
failed to initialise ; boot failure. The efforts we went through to try
to get this drive working again - it had the only known copy of
particular data on it ... ohhh, long task. And because the Boss had
said "we can do this" but hadn't assigned a budget, the multi-thousand
pound fees for putting the drive out to a data recovery company were
not an option. We put a couple of field staff onto manually re-entering
the data from paper records while we were trying to get the drive to
work again. They beat us to success (defined as "something the client
won't notice the shortcomings of for some years").
An educational experience. For one thing, it taught me the
perils of non-standard hardware, even if it were possessed of whatever
claimed advantages. It also taught me that nothing substitutes for a
backup. It also taught me that no matter how often you tell people to
make backups, and you warn them in writing that they'll get the sack if
they don't do backups, people won't do backups. The crew leader
responsible for this debacle didn't get the sack. And the client didn't
notice the shortcomings of their data set until after I'd left the
company. Also educational, but in a different sense.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Why doesn't that surprise any of us.

Me too. The drives I opened (broken or not needed anymore)
had no ''electronics that open the latch''. Maybe a WD
invention? I never opened (or owned) one of those...

You must be very young, babblebot.
Oops, of course you are, as if that was in any doubt.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

All disks I have opened in the past few year used the magnetic variant.

..... suddenly babblebot mysteriously remembers ....

No head ''load/unload zone''.

Maybe because he said "head load/unload" *system*, babblebot?