Need help recovering a 'dead' drive

[Roman]

I have a Quantum 30Gb 7200rpm ATA100 that stopped working. It had
never exibited any grinding noises, and scandisk (last performed 1
week ago) never returned any errors. The PC was powered down Saturday
night without any signs of trouble, but Sunday morning it wouldn't
POST. BIOS doesn't see the drive, neither does fdisk. I hear the
plates spinning, but no head seek noises.

I've tried the Ontrack's EasyRecovery. The drive passes both quick &
extended drive diagnostic tests. However, the partition is 'unknown'
(actually, it's Win98SE's FAT32). Looking at the sector data, all I
see is zeros. Could it be that ERecovery is 'faking' the physical
drive test? The ER manual claims it's reading the actual sectors, but
I hear no noise from the heads!

Since the drive is approx. 3-4 years old, do the old 'professional'
methods of curing the 'stiction' problem still apply? Is spinning the
drive unit better than dropping it? I already tried the freezer trick
and 'gentle' tapping on the drive when the PC boots, with no luck. How
about opening the unit & moving the heads gently?

I'm 99% sure that my data is intact, I just need to get the heads
going again, to allow me a one-time copy of the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA - Roman.

 

[Papa]

Check your HD data cable to see if it has worked itself loose.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Quantum 30Gb 7200rpm ATA100 that stopped
working. It had never exibited any grinding noises, and
scandisk (last performed 1 week ago) never returned any
errors. The PC was powered down Saturday night without
any signs of trouble, but Sunday morning it wouldn't POST.
BIOS doesn't see the drive, neither does fdisk.

Thats pretty bad news. Looks rather like its died electronically.

I hear the plates spinning, but no head seek noises.

More evidence that its died electronically.

I've tried the Ontrack's EasyRecovery. The drive
passes both quick & extended drive diagnostic tests.

Thats odd when it isnt seen by the bios or fdisk.

However, the partition is 'unknown' (actually, it's
Win98SE's FAT32). Looking at the sector data,

With what ?

all I see is zeros. Could it be that ERecovery
is 'faking' the physical drive test?

Or getting seriously confused, anyway.

See what the diagnostic has to say about the drive.
Quantum was bought by Maxtor, so its on the Maxtor site now.

The ER manual claims it's reading the actual
sectors, but I hear no noise from the heads!

Yeah, looks rather like the drive is partially dead electronically.
Dead enough so it isnt visible to the bios or fdisk, but does
respond to some extent so EasyRecovery gets the illusion
that it can see the sectors, and so did what you used to
see that the sectors all appear to contain zeros.

Since the drive is approx. 3-4 years old, do the old 'professional'
methods of curing the 'stiction' problem still apply?

Not with your symptoms.

Is spinning the drive unit better than dropping it?

That is a fix for stiction, when the drive doesnt
spin up because the heads are stuck to the
platter surface. You are seeing the drive spin
up the platters fine, so thats no use for you.

I already tried the freezer trick

Thats also for a different fault than you have.

and 'gentle' tapping on the drive when the PC boots, with no luck.

Thats for stiction and the heads not being released
by the head retention mechanism at startup time.
That last is in theory a possibility, but the drive should
have reported a fault to the PC and clearly doesnt.

How about opening the unit & moving the heads gently?

Very bad idea indeed. Might be worth trying as an absolute last
resort, but it would be MUCH better to try another logic card of
an identical drive. That would likely work and is easy to do.

I'm 99% sure that my data is intact, I just need to get the
heads going again, to allow me a one-time copy of the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Try the logic card swap.

 

[HawkMan98]

I have a Quantum 30Gb 7200rpm ATA100 that stopped working. It had
never exibited any grinding noises, and scandisk (last performed 1
week ago) never returned any errors. The PC was powered down Saturday
night without any signs of trouble, but Sunday morning it wouldn't
POST. BIOS doesn't see the drive, neither does fdisk. I hear the
plates spinning, but no head seek noises.

I've tried the Ontrack's EasyRecovery. The drive passes both quick &
extended drive diagnostic tests. However, the partition is 'unknown'
(actually, it's Win98SE's FAT32). Looking at the sector data, all I
see is zeros. Could it be that ERecovery is 'faking' the physical
drive test? The ER manual claims it's reading the actual sectors, but
I hear no noise from the heads!

Since the drive is approx. 3-4 years old, do the old 'professional'
methods of curing the 'stiction' problem still apply? Is spinning the
drive unit better than dropping it? I already tried the freezer trick
and 'gentle' tapping on the drive when the PC boots, with no luck. How
about opening the unit & moving the heads gently?

I'm 99% sure that my data is intact, I just need to get the heads
going again, to allow me a one-time copy of the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA - Roman.

I fixed a 26Gb Quantum Fireball lct 08 drive last week by buying a 4.3
Gb Quantum Fireball lct 08 hard drive in an eBay auction, then
swapping the electronics. The Phillips chip (which is used for the
drive motor and head actuators, I think) had a corner that was
charred. I used Partition Magic to make copies of all four partitions
from the fixed drive to a new 60Gb hard drive. I'm now using the
fixed 26Gb drive as a scratch drive for video editing. I'm not going
to trust any valuable data to that drive. So, my advice is to try a
similar swap. You must get a drive that has the exact same
electronics. Luckily the Fireball lct 08 drive has electronics that
are extremely easy to swap. No little ribbon cables to fool with.

HawkMan98

 

[Roman]

I fixed a 26Gb Quantum Fireball lct 08 drive last week by buying a 4.3
Gb Quantum Fireball lct 08 hard drive in an eBay auction, then
swapping the electronics. The Phillips chip (which is used for the
drive motor and head actuators, I think) had a corner that was
charred. I used Partition Magic to make copies of all four partitions
from the fixed drive to a new 60Gb hard drive. I'm now using the
fixed 26Gb drive as a scratch drive for video editing. I'm not going
to trust any valuable data to that drive. So, my advice is to try a
similar swap. You must get a drive that has the exact same
electronics. Luckily the Fireball lct 08 drive has electronics that
are extremely easy to swap. No little ribbon cables to fool with.

HawkMan98

The good news is, according to Maxtor, my drive is still under
warranty. The bad if I understand it correctly, they'll get me a
replacement drive, but won't attempt to repair the dead one. The
replacement value of the drive itself: about $60Cdn. The replacement
value of my data: priceless (not really, but I couldn't resist)...

I run Powermax diagnostics, and it returns error code UK0E02. Maxtor
says that's just for RMA purposes, and isn't indicative of the actual
problem, however, had someone seen this code before? In extended
diag.test, I get the 'Drive recal test failed' error. The tests (both
extended & standard) fail almost instantly after being started, which
seems like another indication that the problem is with the board.

Since the board is simple to replace, I'd like to do that instead of
getting a new drive from Maxtor. The question is, how do I find out
the board's ID? Where do I look? It says 'AA3 0D15Y' on the board
itself. Is that it?

TIA - Roman.

P.S. The drive is Quantum AT Fireball Plus AS (30 Gb)
GTLA: AS30A011-01-A
Firmware: A1Y.1300