Failed Hard drive

A

A nonymous

Member
Just wondering if anybody can help me here.

I have a failed Hard drive which was being used in a USB caddy. It failed a few weeks a go so i thought its probably the cheap Chinese caddy thats failed. I purchased a new one and now its still the same which leads me to beleive that the hard drive itself has failed.

I have some important stuff on the hard drive which i need to recover. The drive itself is recognised after about 5 minutes but never initiates to the point where it shows up in my computer.

Whats the likelyhood of this being a board failure, rather than a HDD plater failure? It spins up and it sounds like the actuator arm is moving although its slower than normal.

Its only an old 20Gb Seagate ST92011a (momentus) laptop drive. Does anybody know wher i can get one of these just to try the mainboard in oredr to get the stuff off the drive or someway of reading the drive?

I was intending to back it up onto my PC the day it failed so i am a little p**sed to say the least.

Nano
 
I'll have a look in the shed tomorrow for something that will match yours

Can you take a photo of the top and PCB underneath ?
 
You've tried all the usual clutching at straws things? Like power cycling it once it's warmed up; powering it in different orientations?
 
I would even avoid using a caddy if it was my system, too much to go wrong between the IDE and USB converter, however I did try one from Novatech just before Christmas (no chance of pulling a spare SATA or PSU connection from an IMac to connect directly) and it performed faultlessly.
 
Some try putting the HDD in a freezer...don't know for how long but it's a commonly used trick, must be on Google somewhere.
 
excollier said:
excollier, on 08 Apr 2013 - 11:37, said:
...try putting the HDD in a freezer...
Click to expand...
I've seen this advice as well although I've never had need to try it. What is also said is that this is the method of last resort. You should be ready to pull all the data you can off the failed HD because it won't be useable for anything else after the cold shoulder treatment.
 
How much is your data worth nano? There are companies that will pull data off dead drives but they charge a pretty penny for it.

Pull the case off an oldish pc and connect the drive directly to the cables inside as a slave and see if it is recognised with full voltage running through it with no caddy/coverters in the way.
 
Just had a look nano but I have not got a Seagate 20GB or any other make of 20GB for that matter. I did once try the freezer jobbie and it did not work and as mentioned stopped all chance of further recovery. As it is IDE and not sato I feel it worth trying different sources of power and controller as mentioned.


Ebay item 181106008221
 
There is a lot of information on repairing hard drives on -wikihow.com.
 
I will do try it straight inside the PC sometime this evening. My own PC has thrown a massive wobbler and i've now decided to put Linux on it as i can be done with Windows anymore. It may even be Windows causing the issue i don't know.

As for the freezer bit, thats a no go. I will just keep an eye out for a second hand unit i can pinch the board off. Its mostly photos and stuf on the hard drive and configs for my Linux boxes so i'm not in a major hurry to get them off just yet, i can bide my time.

I'm chucking myself in at the deepend and i'm going for Bohdi Linux. I've run it for a few hours on a Live CD so i think i'm ready for it. Just got to figure out how to put all my email and web pages back on Firefox and Thunderbird under Linux.

Nano
 
For Firefox go to bookmarks - show all bookmarks -import and backup - backup, to a usb flash drive, then on the new Firefox on Bhodi, the same, show all bookmarks - import and backup - restore - choose file and navigate to your usb and you will get a replica of your existing Firefox, except you will need to log in again, so copy all your log in details.
 
Or simply activate Firefox Sync before you bin Windoze. Do take care to write your login and password for it on A PIECE OF PAPER as you obviously won't be able to interrogate once you've installed Bohdi.

Then when you've installed Bohdi, activate Firefox Sync on that and you will get all your Bookmarks, Stored Log-Ins, Passwords, the lot.

(Sync effectively bungs stuff into a little Cloud)
 
I tried Bhodi live a couple of weeks ago, looks impressive, and I've become a total distro junkie of late.
Windows never was a fraction as interesting, just irritating, mostly.
I hope it works out well for you.
 
Nah tried Bodhi and decided it was cack in the end :-lmao

Running Pear Linux 64bit now. Its just like having my old iMAC back, just faster. Took me a while to figure it all out but i'm more than happy with the way it is working.

Its a 1000 times better than windows :D
 
I'll have a look at that, for future reference.
 
I tried to download Pear the other night, but my computer hibernated before it could finish, so I gave up. Looks good mind you.
I haven't found anything as good as Mint (for my usage) yet, but there are several interesting distros out there.
I also use lxpup, a derivative of Puppy linux, as a mobile os on a usb stick, boots very quickly, as do all Puppy Linux versions, and runs entirely in ram, very impressive.
For a heavyweight take a look at PCLinuxOS "Full Monty", great and apt name.

Pear Linux
"Its a 1000 times better than windows"

What isn't?
 
Back
Top