Hard drive recovery

[vorman]

I'm trying to recover a maxtor 80G HD. The BIOS won't recognize the drive at all.

I bought a similar drive and swapped the electronics. No dice - both the old and new circuit boards work fine with the new platters, but neither are recognized by the BIOS when attached to the old (busted) platters.

The disk seems to spin up fine - I can feel it when the power comes on.

I'm at a loss - I don't understand what else might be wrong. Any ideas?

(This is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB ata/133)

 

[powerMarkymark]

I hear Spinrite ia one of the best recovery tools out there.

Think they have a trial version

 

[vorman]

Spinrite only recovers if the BIOS can see the drive...

 

[Stark]

restore from backup?

odds are you're screwed. the next step is break out the wallet and pay a data recovery specialist major $$.
or move on and use it as a learning experience.

If it makes you feel any better, I could probably lose my job if I lost 80 GB on one of my servers at work!

 

[redbeard1]

Ontrack or Drivesavers, $700-3400 depending on what's wrong.

 

[MisterChief]

If you want to recover any data on the drive, a specialist is in order. Only as a last resort, though!

 

[Bozo Galora]

That is crazy.
I could understand it not booting, or not spinning, but the bios would see the ID info from a good circuit
Non recognition means a dead controller chip on drive, but you say it works on other drive.
Unles you somehow fried the electromotive flex circuit traces or connections inside causing a short.
You could try holding the HDD in your hand while turning on the power and gently tappin both sides rapidly with a plastic mallet

Edit: This could make for an interesting experiment to see if the board itself with 12V molex in, but no HDD, would be recognized by bios.

 

[vorman]

Bozo,

Thanks for the reply. I also don't understand what could be wrong - it seems unlikely that a power surge, for example, would have left the circuit board intact but fried something deeper in - and even if so, I don't understand why the drive wouldn't be recognized by the bios.

I'm not sure why tapping the drive witha mallet would help - if the drive wouldn't spin up due to "stiction" this could loosen it, but it can feel the platters spinning. And in any case, this wouldn't explain the bios not recognizing it (would it?).

I may try your idea of hooking up the electronics without the platters just to see what happens!

 

[Blain]

I'm guessing you've already tried the "freezer trick"? :laugh:

 

[lrmat]

bookmark

 

[lrmat]

bookmark

 

[Bozo Galora]

Originally posted by: vorman
Bozo,

Thanks for the reply. I also don't understand what could be wrong - it seems unlikely that a power surge, for example, would have left the circuit board intact but fried something deeper in - and even if so, I don't understand why the drive wouldn't be recognized by the bios.

I'm not sure why tapping the drive witha mallet would help - if the drive wouldn't spin up due to "stiction" this could loosen it, but it can feel the platters spinning. And in any case, this wouldn't explain the bios not recognizing it (would it?).

I may try your idea of hooking up the electronics without the platters just to see what happens!

I would be very interested in the outcome - PM me for sure on this - I have always wanted to do that

http://www.topdownloads.net/software/view.php?id=8307

Edit:
Boot sector virus??
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/baboon.html

 

[vorman]

So I finally got around to trying hooking up the elctronics without the platters today. Interstingly, when I have just the circuit board attached, the BIOS complains that it gets an error trying to auto-recognize the drive configuration. When the whole drive is attached, there is no suchmessage, it simply indicates that there is nothing present at all.

It seems that the electronics in the drive platter unit (not on the curcuit board, which I've replaced) are somehow fried. I think I've run out of home remedies for this one!

PS yes, I also tried the freezer trick, to no avail.