Did this hard drive just fail? HELP!

[MNOB07]

What i had setup was an AMS Venus Enclosure, with a 250GB Seagate. worked great for about 4 months, but I was curious to see what temperature it was running at, among all the other specs that you can't see on an external drive. so i shut everything down, hooked it up to the secondary IDE checked to make sure all jumpers were correct, etc.

the computer wouldn't recognize either drive (primary with windows, nor the 250GB Seagate.) I once again checked all jumpers, cords, switch them around on the IDE strip, booted up, and BIOS still wouldn't detect either of them. i took out the ex external drive, and computer booted up fine no problems.

so then, inside windows, I connected the drive via the external enclosure like I usually do, and nothing happened! I switched the jumper to all possible configurations, still nothing. rebooted windows, still nothing. I tried other drives inside the enclosure, worked perfectly.

what could be wrong? the drive has never made any abnormal sounds such as clicking or anything else usually related to a bad drive. when the drive is powered on, i can hear it spin up as normal, and sound normal and everything it just won't get detected by any means.

It's in the freezer right now. What could be the problem?

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Did you set MASTER and SLAVE when you tried the drive in you box? Some late cables, usually 80 wire, have color coded connectors and must have both devices plugged CS (Cable Select). Hope this helps a little, Jim

 

[V00D00]

I wouldn't put it in the freezer, that's probably going to do more harm than good at this point. You should only do that after you've used ALL your other means.

If you hear it spin up that's a good sign. I would just double check your jumper settings, and try a different cable. I've been managing my 6 hard drives for quite some time and sometimes I neglect the jumpers. Sometimes cables just stop working too.

 

[AMCRambler]

If you double check your jumper settings and try a different cable and get the same results, I'm thinking the drive is faulty. If it's spinning up, that's a good sign though. Another thing I've heard may work(I haven't actually tried this, though I have tried the freezer method) is taking the drive and giving it a couple of taps with a hammer. Now mind you I'm not saying pound on it, but a light tap. If the read head is stuck in the parked position, the drive platters would still spin up, but because the head can't move it will never read. Tapping it could knock the head loose again for you. I'd try this step last as you'd be subjecting the drive to shocks which is not recommended.

EDIT: I wouldn't do it while the drive is on either. If the head were to pop free and you continued tapping it while it was reading, the head would most certainly hit the disk.

 

[MNOB07]

I have tried the drive internally in two different computers, and have checked, double checked, tried, and retried the different jumper settings with no luck.

the external enclosure (which is working fine with my other drives) tells you when the drive's jumpers are set wrong with a red light. It gives me a green light with this drive, and I'm hooking it up the same way i always did so i don't think that's the problem there.

and thanks for the hope AMC, but alas I wasn't able to get the head loose, if that is the problem I'm having nor did the freezer do anything. I have Seagate sending me what I need to return the drive, but I'm still open to any suggestions

 

[AMCRambler]

Other than opening the drive and trying to dislodge the head by hand, which would definitely void the warranty, I can't think of anything else short of swapping the platters with a drive of the exact same type, which I don't think I would even bother attempting. There are companies that will do this for you, for a hefty fee of course. Usually in the range of 400-500 dollars. We have done this for a few drives at work for people that didn't back up to the server. It was about 50/50 odds whether they'd be able to recover the drive. You just have to decide if you need whats on that drive badly enough to spend $500 to get it back.