HDD does not power on

truffles

Member
Sep 27, 2003
121
0
0
Hey fellow anandtech'ers !

Last thursday, I took out my western digital 300gig hdd to transfer a few things. When I installed it back in my pc, I noticed that when I turned on the pc the hdd would not power on - not spinning like how it usually does. The computer does not detect it.

I took it out and tried another pc and an 3.5 inch enclosure but the same effect - not powering on. I made sure the power cable went right in.

Did I somehow discharge it?

There are some important data on it.. is there a solution to recover it?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


~truffles
 

truffles

Member
Sep 27, 2003
121
0
0
Yes, I've tried the same drive on two different computers.

Sorry, I should have been clearer.
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
7
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Any chance of getting an identical hard drive, and swapping the circuit board?
 

truffles

Member
Sep 27, 2003
121
0
0
thanks for the suggestions!

unfortunately, swapping the circuit board sounds too difficult.

seems like its dead and not a simple easy fix.

the hdd was mostly a data drive for music. it had some important documents on it but im relieved it can't be easily recovered then.

i'll keep the drive just in case any suggestions come along. my friend suggested leaving it untouched for a few days to discharge before trying it again. does that sound plausible ?
 

bob4432

Lifer
Sep 6, 2003
11,727
46
91
discharge? if you shocked it with static whatever you hit is probably dead. there freezer tricks but those are usually for drives that will at least power up. so many variables, if you need the data really bad you can contact somebody like ontrack and it will cost anywhere between $500-$2K to get your data back. usually swapping a pcb is just a matter of finding the identical drive and removing some torx screws, but if the actual motor is gone you are sol.