Computer hard drive recovery (Can I do it myself)

[Shag101]

Hi All,

I have a 160gb HD full of pics, videos and music that basically stopped working the other day.  I moved it to a couple of my other computers, but
no matter what, the HD does not power up at all.  None of my computers recognize it since its getting no power for some reason.  
I do have another HD identical to this one and was wondering if there might be parts or something I could just swap out myself.  I dread going to a
recovery place since it will probably cost me around $500 usd.  
Any help would greatly be appreciated.  thanks!!  Chris

[blue]

  I dread going to a
recovery place since it will probably cost me around $500 usd.  

not because it's full of porn? :roll:

i think i better back mine up, thanks for reminding me! :lol:

[Shag101]

  I dread going to a
recovery place since it will probably cost me around $500 usd.  

not because it's full of porn? :roll:

i think i better back mine up, thanks for reminding me! :lol:

HAHAHAH

[Kilby]

If theyre exactly the same models of drive, you can get away with swapping the boards over (provided you can release any ribbon cables without damage).

If it's a power issue / controler board issue the local office of the manfacturer (western digital, seagate or whover) may offer assistance for a smaller fee.

If you can get the drive to spin up, and can copy the data off it then thats fine. If the data is damaged then Spinrite should be able to rescue the vast majority of it (if not all) http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm Dropping the guys at GRC may also get you some help incase there is a known issue (and workaround) with the drive that is causing you problems.

If it's a head crash or one of the platters screwing up it's more than 500 $ Aus the last quote I got for a drive recovery was 1400 UKP for a 20 gig drive (and you don't want to think about the price for getting a tape recovered).

Meanwhile make sure the rest of your porn collection backed up, as I beleive certain members of the forum here may be able to assist you in that ;)

Rob...

[CaffeineJunkie]

just, whatever you do, DON'T TRY AND REMOVE THE COVER ON THE HARD DRIVE

as soon as that comes into contact with the outside world you're $%&#ed

[38thBeatle]

This from my son, who lives in Columbus OH
"I wouldn't recommend trying to repair a hard drive...they're usually sealed tight and should only be opened in a very clean environment
and by someone who knows exactly what they're doing, with the right tools etc.if it's not even powering on, it's probably a power supply issue...sad because the disk itself is probably fine.
I mean power supply on the drive, not the PSU in the PC"

[Kilby]

It's OK to remove the PCB mounted on the underside of the drive as long as the connectors between the drive and the logic board are not soldered in place (most arent).

As for opening drives, especially these days just don't.

History lesson time ;)

This was when stepper motors where used instead of voice coils, and the motors would stick (between steps).

The quickest solution was to whack the edge of the drive against the edge of the table (after removing it from the machine). If it was a particularly unpleasant person who made working on the machine ackward or unpleasant,  you made sure they saw this process (so called software engineers where particularly ripe for this demonstration).

Usually this was good enought to get the heads moving and to allow the data to be copied off onto a replacement drive. But on one occasion I reduced a repellant individual (in a major financial instution) to tears by carrying out this process. I discoverd a month later that he attempted the same fix on a co-workers drive, but because he whacked the drive flat on the table, he destroyed the drive by bouncing the heads of the platters (heheheh).

In those days a 120 Meg drive cost over 1500 quid.

It was very funny.

Rob...

[Shag101]

Thanks All,  

I will try to swap the controller board tonight hoping one of the transistors shorted out or something.  The ribbon is very easy to take off, all I need
to do is find a star head screw driver to unscrew the board.  If that does not work, then I might take it apart.  There seems to be a lot of crazy things on the internet about this and people have swapped platter with success.  They probably wont work for long since the dust will catch up with it, but I only need it to work an hour
so I can back it up onto another drive.

[Kilby]

If you do open the drive then I would suggest doing so unside a large (transparent) ziplock bag (so you can seal it when nessicarry).

Rob...