Hard Drive Problems (MaxBlast??)

[ZetaEpyon]

Hello again, I'm back with another strange situation.

I am trying to help a friend of mine get her computer upgraded. Originally, she had a Dell Pentium II system, but has bought a new P3, motherboard, RAM, case, etc. The only things she is really keeping from the old system are the original 9GB hard drive and a 40GB maxtor drive she had added at some point.

We have been able to get the system up and running fine in windows 2000, but the 40GB Maxtor doesn't seem to want to be detected by the motherboard or Windows. The 9GB drive and CD drive detect fine and display in the BIOS screen. She had mentioned to me that in order to get the drive to work in the Dell system, she had to use the MaxBlast software provided by Maxtor, due to the age of the system. Knowing this, we tried going in with MaxBlast II, freshly downloaded. The 40GB drive does appear in the MaxBlast configuration, despite the fact that it is not detected by BIOS. We tried enabling EZ-BIOS control of the drive to see if this would cause it to show in Windows, but it did not work.

If anyone has any ideas on how to get this thing to work and show up correctly in Windows, some help would be greatly appreciated. All her data for the past couple years is stored on this drive, and it would be horrible for her to lose it all.

Thanks much!

 

[SemperFi]

The first thing I would look for is a bios update from manufacturer. Look for info concerning 32Mb drive size while you are there. That board may not have that issue.

Do you have a controller board that you can slip in and test with? Like maybe a maxtor board.

Semper Fi

 

[ZetaEpyon]

We're working on getting a BIOS update going. I don't think the motherboard should have any issues regarding the 32Gb limit; it is a brand new Gigabyte GA-6OXT-A, using the Intel i815 chipset. So we aren't really dealing with something that would be incapable of handling such a drive. Unfortunately, we do not have a separate controller card to test the drive with.

Thanks for the response, any other ideas?

 

[SemperFi]

Have you tried a new cable and recheck your jumpers on the drive?

Semper Fi

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Hmm, I don't think she's tried another cable, but the 9GB drive is hooked to the same one and working fine. I'll also have her double check the jumper settings.

(Hard to troubleshoot stuff like this over the internet )

 

[SemperFi]

When you ran the maxblast software did you do a diagnostic on it? You want to stay away from that ezbios make sure it is disabled or off. I just recently started using Maxtor so I don't know but if their software is like WD there is a tool for writing 0's to the drive.

Do you have the bios set to auto detect the drive upon boot or did you go into the bios and use the scan for drives function? If you just had it set to auto try doing a scan from inside the bios.

Semper Fi

 

[ZetaEpyon]

I didn't run a diagnostic from the MaxBlast software. I had her enable EZ-BIOS since that is how the drive was set up in the old computer, but it didn't work, so it is currently not installed at all. The last thing she wants to do is write 0s to the drive, since all her data is on there and she doesn't really have any of it backed up.

We'll try running the scan from inside the BIOS and see what happens, because, no, it doesn't show up in the POST with it set to Auto.

Thanks again!

 

[SemperFi]

Have you tried to put the drive in another system to see if you get same result. Also run the test to see if there are any problems reported. We might be chasing nothing if the drive reports errors.

Semper Fi

 

[ZetaEpyon]

The only other system to try it in is the old computer, which it worked fine in before it was removed. She isn't online at the moment, I'll have her run diagnostics in MaxBlast when she comes back on.

 

[Peacekeeper100]

If EZ-bios didn't work then it's probably not a bios problem, unless one of the onboard IDE controller are off. Are you sure all of the IDE controllers are on, and the 40GB HD is setup to auto-detect? Other than that I would triple check the jumpers, then try it in another system again. Even the old one if it still runs. Who know you might have fried it in the x-fer. Sorry about repeating some stuff, but this would be my troubleshooting steps.

 

[unclebabar]

Is the Cylinder Limitation Jumper on 40 GB maxtor installed for some unknown reason? The stupid maxtors have a type B and type C jumper layout which is identical except the slave/park and the CLJ are swapped.

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Ok, she gave me a status update this evening. Apparently, she has discovered part of the problem. She told me that two of the pins on the drive appear to be broken. I'm not too certain what pins she means by this; I am assuming the IDE pins. It was detected in BIOS for a short while after she messed around with the cable a bit, so I am guessing that this is indeed the problem. The solution she has come up with is to go buy another drive of the exact same model, and use the circuit board from that drive on hers. I told her that it probably isn't the best way to go about fixing it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work, presuming that the drives are of the exact same model. Am I incorrect in this assumption?

Also, does anyone know how good Maxtor's RMA policy is regarding repairing drives and things such as this?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[unclebabar]

why replace the the whole PCB (and mess up a good drive) if only the pins are broke? screwing with it is going to void the warranty. you might want to get the scoop from maxtor before fiddling with it.

on the maxtor i'm looking at, it looks like you can unscrew the pcb to access the ide pins and probably re-solder new pins. but if she's willing to shell out say $60 for a new maxtor just for replacement parts, then she might want consider using a professional data recovery service (which may not void the warranty, check with maxtor). I can't imagine them charging too much for something so simple.

as for will replacing the pcb work or not, who knows ... probably, but why take the chance?

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Those were basically my sentiments, but she seems to want to go ahead with her plan. I guess she is worried about other methods taking too long, and wants the data back as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the input!

 

[SemperFi]

How old is the drive? if it is over a year old the board might not be the same.

Just a note but there is one pin not used on purpose.

Here is a suggestion to try to get your data back. Get solid core wire at roughly 18ga. I'm not sure on the guage of wire. You want the stripped wire to fit snug into the hole of an ide cable. Strip the wire back an inch then slide the stripped end of the wire into the hole that is missing a pin. Slide wire in til it bottoms out then cut wire so there is a little high say 1/16 of an inch. Repeat for other broken pins. plug into drive and retrieve your files. Maybe do a copy over to the new drive.

Semper Fi

 

[ZetaEpyon]

SemperFi,

I'll have her try that before taking apart the drives. I'm really leery of doing such a thing, myself. I believe she said that the drive is about 2 years old, so I too have been concerned that a new drive may not even use the same board due to revisions.

Thanks!