Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB HD204UI fell on the floor and broke!

[psolord]

Hey champs.

I have a Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB HD204UI enclosed in an external USB 2.0 case. Yesterday it fell on the floor from desk height, while it was not powered on and when I tried to operate it, it did not work anymore.

The hdd case was checked with another HDD and works fine. The F4 was checked on another case and still does not work.

It powers up, spins mildly, I feel some head movement and that's it. It stops after that.

The HDD does not seem to be damaged on its outside. What part of the disk would be damaged after such an incident? Are they really so sensitive? I have never had a HDD die on me like that, but on the other hand none other fell on the floor.

If I replace the control board with another control board of the same make, is there a chance that it would work, or am I looking at reading head damage here?

Is there anyway I could get my data back apart from sending it to a specialized recovery company (not so important data to do that, but still..)?

Thanks beforehand.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I wonder if the head just hit too hard ... I can't imagine if it was truly off/zero power to it, that it would do that ... imagine what they go through in shipping/UPS/FEDEX/USPS/etc

 

[psolord]

Yeah that's what I was wondering as well. The heads should be parked when the incident happened.

I am gonna connect it to a sata port now, to see if it gets recognized by any chance and SMART tells me what the heck is going on.

PS There's no spin activity at all. There's a buzzing sound that comes out of the HDD and after a while it stops.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's not so uncommon when you drop a HDD on the floor. They ARE that sensitive.

Even if not powered up.

 

[thelastjuju]

Data recovery services could cost you hundreds of hundreds of dollars.. depends how bad they try to bleed you, so I'd only do it if the data is precious. Although this is why you should always have backups.

Maybe you can get Seagate to replace it if they honor the warranty, but its possible they will be able to visibly see evidence that it was indeed dropped, rather than your typical hard drive failure.

 

[PowerYoga]

Parked heads don't protect from drops. In the shipping box they have layers of padding that makes shaking minimal so that's a completely different story.

I wouldn't try anything with replacements since that voids your warranty, and there's no guarantee you're fixing the right thing. If the data is that important you can send it to recovery centers, else I'd just get the warranty and count this as a life lesson.

 

[psolord]

Well I had my fair share of life lessons, computer maintenance related included.

Still I guess that's what happens when you leave your girlfriend handle your equipment, I mean the computer related one, heh. This should serve as a life lesson itself though.

In any case, I put the hdd in the fridge, in the hopes that something may have been stuck and the cold will give it some slack, so it can move again. There's a theory that this had worked for some people, so who knows.

That's not so uncommon when you drop a HDD on the floor. They ARE that sensitive.

Even if not powered up.

The HD204UI's specs report that it can withstand a shock of up to 300Gs when not operational.
http://www.comx-computers.co.za/HD204UI-specifications-38551.htm

So would a drop from desk height, exceed this shock? Am I eligible to claim my warranty? Also please keep in mind that the HDD was enclosed in a case, which also has two rubber bands on its sides, so the shock should be less than what it would be, if it was dropped bare.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Well I had my fair share of life lessons, computer maintenance related included.

Still I guess that's what happens when you leave your girlfriend handle your equipment, I mean the computer related one, heh. This should serve as a life lesson itself though.

In any case, I put the hdd in the fridge, in the hopes that something may have been stuck and the cold will give it some slack, so it can move again. There's a theory that this had worked for some people, so who knows.







The HD204UI's specs report that it can withstand a shock of up to 300Gs when not operational.
http://www.comx-computers.co.za/HD204UI-specifications-38551.htm

So would a drop from desk height, exceed this shock? Am I eligible to claim my warranty? Also please keep in mind that the HDD was enclosed in a case, which also has two rubber bands on its sides, so the shock should be less than what it would be, if it was dropped bare.

This got me interested so I looked up some formulas (i'm not the most math savvy).
He could have easily exceeded 300Gs dropping from 1 meter up.
It depends on the surface/enclosure and how they effect the deceleration rate.
For example assuming .01 seconds to decelerate from 4.43m/s (drop from 3') the Gs would be 443

apparently many factors involved and hard to calculate accurately.

 

[psolord]

Wow that must have been quite a hit. Poor hdd! Thanks for that.

Since the hdd does not spin and makes a buzzing sound, I have begun wondering if the pcb has been damaged in some way.

I'll try measuring the PCB voltageS as per this post
http://forum.hddguru.com/samsung-hd204ui-pcb-bf41-00314a-t22953-20.html#p154710

If my voltages are not correct, I'll try swapping another PCB anyway. Thankfully I have another same hard drive, which was bought together with the broken one. I always buy HDDs in pairs, just in case I need the PCB of the other. It would be great if I am just looking at just a PCB damage, although I believe that chances are higher I am looking at head damage.

As I said the data is not that important, but I am looking further into it due to technical interest. Maybe the knowledge that will come from this, will save some important data in the future.

 

[bryanl]

I have read that the spindle axle for the platters is rather sensitive to misalignment, and one Youtube video demonstrates this by loosening the lid screws.

 

[Railgun]

If you dropped it on edge, depending on what edge it was, it's possible it may have been able to survive. If it was dropped anywhere near flat, you probably did physical head damage.

Being there's no spin activity, I would bet the heads are so outta wack the drive won't spin in some attempt to preserve whatever may still be recoverable after opening it up.

And yes, they are recoverable in that regard if you really need it.

 

[bryanW1995]

Ugh, that sucks. Glad I'm all ssd these days.

 

[anttir]

Hey champs.

It powers up, spins mildly, I feel some head movement and that's it. It stops after that.

Sounds like it can't get up to set rpm and fails. It might be bearings, misalignment as someone said or such.

Norman Ibas is not a good choice. The price is not bad if the disk is working properly but the data was deleted (not overwritten), partition format or such which can be easily parsed by modern software.

Changing the board is also possible. After that it gets very expensive.

 

[psolord]

Hey guys.

Thanks a lot for your caring and suggestions. Finally I have some good news.

After trying the freeze method, which didn't work at all, I measured the voltages as per the link I posted earlier and the control board seemed to be OK. So since the disk was gone for me, as a last resort, I started banging it on the mouse pad which is quite thick and rubbery so I wouldn't scratch it on the outside.

After a couple of strong hits, I heard the motor spinning up followed by the windows notification sound! I gasped in awe when I saw that the disk was alive and kicking and all my directory structure was intact.

I did some random reads and everything seemed to be in order, but I decided to run a HD Tune benchmark session, just to see if the HDD worked as it should, before doing a surface scan that is.

HD Tune was returning an error after the 1450GB and close to 1500GB.

It was still good enough for me, since this meant I would save a huge amount of data. I immediately started moving the data and in my astonishment, total commander could not move only around 50GBs worth of files, which were easily recovered by their archives.

So at the end all was well and no data was lost.

After that, I did do a slow format, which in my surprise it returned with no errors! Still the HD Tune bench was giving a read error at the same position. SMART is fast asleep as well and seems to be quite satisfied with the overall condition of the disk, only showing two warnings. Jesus will this thing ever start showing the true condition of the HDDs?

In any case, the disk is beyond any kind of usability and all I wonder now, is if I am eligible to start an RMA procedure or should I just suck it up and get a new one?:?:

 

[gorcorps]

Why try to get an RMA for a drive that no longer appears broken, and even if it was it wasn't a manufacturing defect? Suck it up, get a new one... and by that I mean new hdd AND girlfriend.

 

[psolord]

Why try to get an RMA for a drive that no longer appears broken, and even if it was it wasn't a manufacturing defect? Suck it up, get a new one... and by that I mean new hdd AND girlfriend.

Yeah I think I will just suck it up, since it was collaterally my fault and directly OUR fault, although I do believe the hdd could be more robust.

The disk is broken though. As I said HD Tune still gives an error when trying to access 1450GB+ and quits.

Moreover I tried writing 1.5TB of data back to it, and it got stuck at 1TB. There's no way trusting or using this HDD again.

The important thing here is that I will not have to go through getting back all this data.

 

[bigi]

Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB HD204UI fell on the floor and broke!

No shit.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I have a coworker who tried "percussive maintenance" out of frustration. (She's been convinced for years her laptop was on the verge of dying, but it's fine. She just doesn't know how to use it.)

She hit it so hard the HDD failed.

She's now on the hook for data recovery services because she had no backup of her grad-school work.

I'd laugh, but I actually think she's alright people and she's got some money issues. (Her husband left the USAF a couple years ago, works in sales, but has changed jobs a few times. One company went bankrupt, not sure about what happened with the others.)

 

[Concillian]

Yeah I think I will just suck it up, since it was collaterally my fault and directly OUR fault, although I do believe the hdd could be more robust.

Umm... you believe drives should be able to be robust enough to survive a fall from ~1meter?

I'm amazed that you were able to get it to work. Consider yourself lucky. I've accidentally killed drives with less.

 

[tweakboy]

Kiss that HD goodbye, You would have been better off dropping your video card or motherboard or ram or CPU....

hard drive is very mechanical and delicate. Shame on you for dropping it. Why would it be outside in your hand anyway ? slippery fingers

 

[bryanl]

Moreover I tried writing 1.5TB of data back to it, and it got stuck at 1TB. There's no way trusting or using this HDD again.

You may be able to make it seem normal by running a utility to cut its capacity from 2TB to 1TB:

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

http://www.hdat2.com/

That's not to say I would trust such a 'repaired' drive for regular use, but I would keep it as an extra archive of the data, emphasis on 'extra.'