Need Serious Advice

Mongoo

Member
Sep 20, 2004
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My Maxtor Dimond Plus 9, 120GB hard drive failed. It makes musical beeps and very few people have had this problem. I only found one person that suffered the same fate. Heres a link.

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t43161.html .... Listen to the sound he posted, thats exactly what my drive does. For what its worth, I used the drive without a problem for a little over a year before it broke.

Now, I am faced with two options. 1) Open the drive up like this guy did, (but I don't understand what to do exactly) or 2) Put the drive in the freezer for like an hour and see if that will fix it.


I have already installed a new hard drive to transfer all of the data as quickly as possible. I aslo bought a DVD burner to back up my other hard drive and make back ups as soon as I can of my lost data, thats if I can get it spinning for a little bit.


What do you think I should try first, which is the safest option I mean without making things worse? I have never opened up a drive before and don't even know what tools I would need for the operation. The screws are star shaped not your regular philips or strait edge.

Please help, because I think I have everything in place to make a decision one way or another.

Thanks

Mongoo
 

TeeJay1952

Golden Member
May 28, 2004
1,532
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106
Do the freezer trick. Make sure it is in sealed bag. Do it quickly. (after fridge)
 

Mongoo

Member
Sep 20, 2004
135
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Do you think I should put it in a couple of bags?
Like for example I could put it in the antistatic bag, fold that over and place that bag in a ziplock freezer bag.

I've heard you should suck the air out of the bag too. Do you recommend that too?

How long Should I keep it in there? If I put it in for an hour and it still doesn't work should I put it in longer?

Thanks

Mongoo
 

PhoenixOrion

Diamond Member
May 4, 2004
4,312
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Freezer trick works.

I used it on a Samsung that died. I double bagged it in a ziplock, froze it overnight, thaw it for an hour until condensate has dried up, popped it in and working like a charm for a week now.
 

Mongoo

Member
Sep 20, 2004
135
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Something else I should know.

What shoud I set the drive too? Master, Slave, or CS? What does CS mean?

I don't know what My dvd burner is set to but the bad drive is going to be on that IDE connector. Should I set to master or what ever my dvd burner is set to? Or should I just keep it set to whatever I had the bad hard drive set to before it went wacky?

Thanks

Mongoo
 

Cook1

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2004
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CS = Cable Select

This is how I would do it, others may critique it.

Set the damaged HD as Slave and your new HD as Master. Put both of those on one IDE Cable. Put your new HD/Master on the end of the cable and the damaged/Slave in the middle.

The Burner should be on the other IDE channel as Master (people now say it really doesn't matter what your burner is set at, I just always put it as master personally).

Power up, you should be able to access your other drive and pull info to your new HD or back it up on disk.
 

Mongoo

Member
Sep 20, 2004
135
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So what are some other peoples opinions on freezer time? 30min's 1 hour, 2 hours? longer?


What about the anti static bag? Should I put the drive in the anti static bag and also in 2 freezer bags?

I would think the anti static would keep it safe from electric shock but might be a bigger risk for condensation? Don't know, what do you think?

Any other opinions with how to set up the IDE cable? I'm just going to take the DVD burner out when its time to make the switch. I have my main hardrive and floppy drive hooked up to the other IDE cable. And even if I did take one of those out, I don't think the IDE cable woud reach from the 5" bays to the 3.5" bays.

Thanks

Mongoo