Hard Disk Drive Dies on Immediately on Boot.. ???

[haiwan]

Hey everyone..

I am running into a problem where when I turn on my computer, the hard disk spins up like normal, then I can hear it power down, and its as if it is not connected. I tried attaching it as a secondary drive in another machine and the same thing happens, so I am pretty sure its the drive.

Its a Maxtor 2B020H1. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to fix this, or if its possible to recover the data if I take it to one of those hard drive restoring places.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: haiwan
Hey everyone..

I am running into a problem where when I turn on my computer, the hard disk spins up like normal, then I can hear it power down, and its as if it is not connected. I tried attaching it as a secondary drive in another machine and the same thing happens, so I am pretty sure its the drive.

Its a Maxtor 2B020H1. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to fix this, or if its possible to recover the data if I take it to one of those hard drive restoring places.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Hard drive restoring places will charge you a FORTUNE, so be warned, have you checked your PSU?

 

[OverVolt]

Have you tried putting it in a sealed plastic bag and letting it stay in the freeze overnight. Then try to hook it up asap and see if it will work for a few minutes while you get important files off the HD.

Sounds like a far cry, but i've heard it work in many situations. If the HD is toast can't dmg it any more

I've never had a HD go bad on me so i've never tried it but maybe some 1 else has and can give some better advice

Good Luck!

 

[SpeedFreak03]

try hooking up just the power to it, no ide cable. If the drive stays spun up (I mean on), then something is telling it to spin down. If it doesn't work, then I'm not sure what to tell you. You know how the wires come out of the PSU and kind of "branch off"? Try unhooking everything from that whole wire except for the HDD. I know this isn't very clear (I'm not good at describing things :roll. This actually was a problem for a computer I fixed once. I just unhooked the cd-rom off of the wire that the HDD was hooked up to, and it spun right up (before, it didn't spin up at all)! Good Luck!

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: OverVolt
Have you tried putting it in a sealed plastic bag and letting it stay in the freeze overnight. Then try to hook it up asap and see if it will work for a few minutes while you get important files off the HD.

Sounds like a far cry, but i've heard it work in many situations. If the HD is toast can't dmg it any more

I've never had a HD go bad on me so i've never tried it but maybe some 1 else has and can give some better advice

Good Luck!

It does work! Putting my dead HD in the freezer gave me enough time to copy the entire HD over to a backup drive. I highly recommend trying it.

Link

 

[haiwan]

HD is in the freezer as we speak.. I'll try it after work today. Thanks for the tips people.

To the person that suggested not having the IDE cable attached, yes, its the same problem either way.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: haiwan
HD is in the freezer as we speak.. I'll try it after work today. Thanks for the tips people.

To the person that suggested not having the IDE cable attached, yes, its the same problem either way.

You did test the PSU though right?

For all you know it could be a PSU problem

Did you try different power cables etc?

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel

Originally posted by: OverVolt
Have you tried putting it in a sealed plastic bag and letting it stay in the freeze overnight. Then try to hook it up asap and see if it will work for a few minutes while you get important files off the HD.

Sounds like a far cry, but i've heard it work in many situations. If the HD is toast can't dmg it any more

I've never had a HD go bad on me so i've never tried it but maybe some 1 else has and can give some better advice

Good Luck!

It does work! Putting my dead HD in the freezer gave me enough time to copy the entire HD over to a backup drive. I highly recommend trying it.

Link

As mentioned the freezer trick does work, HOWEVER before you try that you may want to see if any of your friends/family have the same drive and try swapping the controller boards (on the drive) first. It's an easy change just be gentle to all the parts. If switching the boards doesn't work then put your original board back on it and try the freezer.

More info here:

200 Ways to Revive a Hard Drive
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Thorin