Recovery of a fried harddrive?

K

ken

I've just fried an old harddrive (3.2GB Quantum Fireball) while trying
to put it in slave mode by putting a jumper on the 5volt pin on the back
where other drives often have the master/slave jumper pins. The
drive still spins up and a little green LED on the underside still comes
on however the BIOS now fails to recognize the drive as master or slave.

Is there anything I can do to recover this drive or at least the data on
the drive? Ultimately I was trying to mount it as a slave so I could
burn the entire drive image to a dvd before cleaning it and re-using it
in an old machine.

Thanks for any help!
Ken
 
A

Arno Wagner

Previously ken said:
I've just fried an old harddrive (3.2GB Quantum Fireball) while trying
to put it in slave mode by putting a jumper on the 5volt pin on the back
where other drives often have the master/slave jumper pins. The
drive still spins up and a little green LED on the underside still comes
on however the BIOS now fails to recognize the drive as master or slave.
Is there anything I can do to recover this drive or at least the data on
the drive? Ultimately I was trying to mount it as a slave so I could
burn the entire drive image to a dvd before cleaning it and re-using it
in an old machine.

I think a professional recovery job is the only option. Might or might
not be worth the money.

Arno
 
R

Rod Speed

I've just fried an old harddrive (3.2GB Quantum Fireball)

Which fireball exactly ? What letters are there after that like EX ?
while trying to put it in slave mode by putting a jumper on the 5volt pin on
the back where other drives often have the master/slave jumper pins.

What 5V jumper ? There's only a reserved jumper on that vintage of Fireball.
The drive still spins up and a little green LED on the underside still comes
on however the BIOS now fails to recognize the drive as master or slave.
Is there anything I can do to recover this drive or at least the data on the
drive?

First thing to do is get clear what you managed to do to the drive.

If you have actually killed it, and thats very unlikely,
you should be able to swap the logic card from
another Fireball of the same model and size.

You should be able to find one on ebay.
 
K

ken

Hello, thank you for the responses!
So, the specifics on the drive are:
Quantum Fireball TM 3.5 Series TM32A012

Exactly what I did was to very foolishly mistake the 3-pin power port on
the back of the drive for the jumper pins. It is between the 4-pin power
input and the many-pin IDE cable input as displayed in this document:
http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor...antum_jumper_settings/fireball_tm_jumpers.pdf

Upon further inspection of where the 3-pins connect to the circuit board
I see that one is labeled GND, and one +5V, and the middle one is not
labeled. So, by putting a jumper on those pins I connected the +5V pin
with the center pin and I assume that shorted out the drive and fried
something on the board.

After doing that I realized that the jumpers are on the underside of the
drive but by then it was too late and the BIOS no longer will see the drive.

I hope that clarifies the scenario. I really appreciate the suggestions
and help! Thank you!
Ken
 
R

Rod Speed

Hello, thank you for the responses!
So, the specifics on the drive are:
Quantum Fireball TM 3.5 Series TM32A012
Exactly what I did was to very foolishly mistake the 3-pin power port on the
back of the drive for the jumper pins. It is between the 4-pin power input and
the many-pin IDE cable input as displayed in this document:
http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor...antum_jumper_settings/fireball_tm_jumpers.pdf
Upon further inspection of where the 3-pins connect to the circuit board I see
that one is labeled GND, and one +5V, and the middle one is not labeled.
12V

So, by putting a jumper on those pins I connected the +5V pin with the center
pin and I assume that shorted out the drive and fried something on the board.

OK, that makes a lot more sense.
After doing that I realized that the jumpers are on the underside of the drive
but by then it was too late and the BIOS no longer will see the drive.
I hope that clarifies the scenario.

Yeah, you likely have fried the logic card.
I really appreciate the suggestions and help!

Its very easy to change the logic card if you can find another one.
Best to get one of another fireball TM of the same size off ebay.
 
K

ken

Thank you very much for the advice! I will try to find a compatible
logic card. Thanks!
Ken
 
T

Timothy Daniels

Can logic cards be easily swapped on Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9s? I have a 80GB 7200rpm drive whose owner applied
12v to its 5v input, and what appears to be a small wirewound
resistor looks burnt. How does one replace the card or the
"resistor"? Any chance the "resistor" is just a fuze?

*TimDaniels*
 
R

Rod Speed

Timothy Daniels said:
Rod Speed wrote
Can logic cards be easily swapped on Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9s?

Dunno, never tried it. I doubt it given the vintage of those drives.

I know that the Fireball TM can and have done it successfully with a similar
vintage Sirroco, but thats a much older smaller drive than your Maxtor.

The only real trick with those older Quantums is that it
isnt immediately obvious to everyone how to get the
flat flexible cable that goes to the off logic card stuff
out of the socket it goes into. Turns out to have tiny
latches on either side of the cable that you pull out
with a fingernail and that allows the cable to come
out of the connector it goes into. There is no connector
on the flexible cable, the end goes into the connector
I have a 80GB 7200rpm drive whose owner applied
12v to its 5v input, and what appears to be a small wirewound
resistor looks burnt. How does one replace the card or the
"resistor"? Any chance the "resistor" is just a fuze?

You get things called picofuses that look rather like a resistor
if you dont know much about components. The big difference
is that they dont have color bands that a resistor would have
and I wouldnt have called them like a wire wound either.
They just have a metal body and are similar in size to
an 1/8 W resistor, but more lumpy on the ends.

And when a picofuse blows, it doesnt
look burnt with that sort of over voltage.

Its more likely its a real resistor that got fried.

Dunno what Maxtor does in that area, I dont use Maxtor drives much.
 

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