Hard Drive Repair

[Airwalker]

I've a Maxtor 20GB which crashed last week with a lot of data inside. Now, the hard disk in not recognized at boot time by the BIOS and it does not spin. I don't want to send it to a "data recovery" company and I want to try to repair my self. I want to buy an exacly identical drive and replace the electronics board for the new one *assuming that the problem is only in the elctronics part and not in the mechanical part, which is my problem I think. Is it possible to repair my HD?

 

[corkyg]

Only if you have a clean room, a sterile environment and proper tools. Thetiniest spec of dust in the air or colloidal particle can be a boulder in the path of drive heads speeding across a platter. That would mean opening up a brand new drive and probably ruining it. Why not see if you can get a replacement circuit board for your drive. Most drive failures are mechanical and not electrical anyway. The fact that yours does not spin tends to suggest a frozen bearing.

If the data is really important, send it to a professional recovery house where they have a clean room, etc. If it is not worth the money to do that, then it probably is not worth throwing away the cost of an identical drive. At least try to get a cheap used one.

 

[AnthraX101]

Airwalker, you would be best off asking the company if you could just buy the controler. Even small variations in the version could change something. (thats PCP version)

Armani

 

[flot]

I did this way back in the day with a 20 or 32 mb hard drive, and it worked *Great*. Recovered all my data, no problem. I think I even took the platter assembly out of the bad drive and very very carefully put it into the good one.

Then tried to do it again a couple years ago with a 2 gig drive or something. Found a drive that was nearly identical (same model, looked the same, maybe some versioning etc was different) and tried to swap the platters into it. No luck whatsoever.

However I would think that if you didn't crack the case open (just replaced the circuitry on the bottom) you'd have a better shot. Of cousre, I also suspect that the circuitry on the bottom is the least prone to failure.

 

[Airwalker]

When I supply voltage, one of the chips in the circuit board is hot. Therefore, I think the problem is from the circuit board. If I have the identical circuit board and replace it, I think it should work. That is what I think.

 

[RBS]

The hot chip could still be caused by a mechanical failure. If you have a stuck bearing then the motor drive circuit can be overloading trying to start the platters spinning (that can make the chip hot). One way to get a stuck bearing working is to spin the fly-wheel using your hand:
1. Remove Harddrive
2. Determine if flywheel is accessible (may have to remove the control PCB)
3. If accessible rotate the flywheel slowly with your hand
4. try to find the angle at which the bearings have the most friction
5. rotate the flywheel so that its 180 degrees from the angle in step 4
6. reassemble and install the harddrive

This should allow the platters to start spinning and their momentum will carry them through the high friction spot. You get one chance to backup the drive because Newton says it will stop on the high friction area when you shut off the drive, and don't bet on this working more than once or twice because the bearings won't heal themselves.

May the centripetal force be with you...

 

[whatavalue]

To slove the dust/particles in the air problem, do what some photographers do. Turn on a humifier or your shower on for a couple of mins. Just like after it has rained outside.