maxtor drive died - whack it or drop it

[Mingon]

Just helping my friend to clone a 15gb drive onto his new 60gb and the damn thing just dies, Norton ghost blurted out a bad sector error and then froze. The drive wont even spin up now - its just totally dead on start up as if the head has got stuck or the motor has died.

I am thinking of hooking it up and give it a friendly tap to try to kick start it, any other suggestions.

 

[MoMeanMugs]

Why don't you do what a person with common sense would do and see if it can be RMA'ed?

 

[Petronius]

Sometimes throwing it in a fridge for a while helps but that is usually a last ditch attempt to pull data off a bad drive

 

[gunf1ghter]

You can also try to whack it against the floor a few times. Hit it with a rubber mallet. No kidding, I have done these things with drives that were toast and it will bring about 1 in 4 back from death (long enouch to get the data off of it).

 

[UberNeuman]

I heard that you can take the drive, wrap it in a towel and put in the fidge for 30min to cool it down, then you "might" be able to finish recovering the drive...

 

[AA0]

ya, I doubt 15 gigs is over 3 years old, maxtor should honour it.

 

[bozo1]

What gunf1ighter said. I've revived drives that had a stuck motor or a crashed head by whacking it with a hammer or dropping it on the floor from 3-4 feet up. Had about a 50% success rate to get it to spin up - at least long enough for me to get the data off.

Course that will only possibly work if it's a stuck motor - not if there is an electronics failure or major head crash.

 

[todesengel]

Go into the largest room of your house and stand with your back flat against the wall. Have your Mommy stand across the room and run straight towards you at full speed and crush the hard drive against your forehead.

Either the hard drive will begin working again or you will think straighter. Either way, you can't lose.

 

[Mingon]

Thanks for the great suggestions, might try a car speaker magnet as I managed to revive a maxtor that way. I can rma the drive the problem is that the data on the drive would be nice to recover. Unfortunately I cant get my mum to run at it - I dont live at home no more Anymore great ideas - im thinking perhaps a nice piece of 4 x 2 and a game of baseball

 

[Lucky]

<< ya, I doubt 15 gigs is over 3 years old, maxtor should honour it. >>




I had a WD 30 gigger die yesterday during similar circumstances-manufacturing date is July 1999. Not sure If I can RMA it or not.

 

[bozo1]

<< had a WD 30 gigger die yesterday during similar circumstances-manufacturing date is July 1999. Not sure If I can RMA it or not. >>


You should check the serial number at their site and if still covered, do it ASAP. It's probably very close to being up.

 

[Abzstrak]

never put one in the fridge... did the freezer though, had it help 4 out of the 5 times I've done it. Worth a shot at any rate, just keep an eye on the condensation.

whacking it helps too sometimes, if U dont have a rubber maller, just slap it a few times on a carpeted floor.

 

[WarCon]

Yeah, if the drive was still spinning and you can't read it then I have tried the freezer trick a few times. One of my friends was freaking out quite a few years back, over having all his data on a WD 1gig. He was going to RMA it, but wanted his data bad. He just on a wild tangent put his drive in the freezer and then brought it back out and was able to get it all off, but it took a couple of freezings. He was pretty excited because he figured out how to get his data. You have to watch the condensation though, don't let it build up.

But since yours is not spinning, only thing you can try is to try to free the bearing (if its frozen) or it could just be the drive motor assembly and there isn't any cheap solutions for getting that data off.

 

[Abzstrak]

freezing the drive causes the metal to contract and can free a stuck head.... if the motor is fried, your kinda screwed... never seen one with a bad motor though.

 

[Mingon]

its difficult to tell what the problem is - their is no noise coming from it all during power on. I would have expected something if the motor is stuck

 

[Abzstrak]

the motor will shut off if it detects resistance