can this hard drive be saved?

  • Thread starter Thread starter J Lunis
  • Start date Start date
ok. Maxtor did in the past have a terrible reputation. I have heard
reports over the past 6 months of people saying Maxtor are ok or
good(though prior to that, everybody said they were crap). So, maybe
that's enough of a period for me to reevaluate my opinion on Maxtor.
Makes change. And it's extremely important to know which are good and
which are crap - for each component.

Thus far for example. There is no debate that Asus Abit MSI Gigabyte,
are all good makes. In that order. I'm always open to know when
thigns change. But it's extremely important to be informed on this.

AFter hearing that maxtor was bad for a long time. Then overa period
of some months having a couple of people saying they haven't had
problems. Wasn't quite enough to say MAxtor are 'not crap' or are
even good. But I guess now they have changed. I won't say they're
crap anymore. And if i hear more good reports, i'll say they're good.
Click to expand...

Ok, I accept your apology ;)
I have had Maxtor for years and still have 10Giggers and older that are
working fine. More important to take care of them no matter what they are.
 
I once said WD was te best make. And a load of ppl said "NO WAY" WD ARE
TERRIBLE". They mentioned the WD40 and WD80. Said it had serious
jumper problems. Only operating when the cable was set to cable select.
And another problem of only working alongside another WD drive!!!
 
I once said WD was te best make. And a load of ppl said "NO WAY" WD
ARE TERRIBLE". They mentioned the WD40 and WD80. Said it had serious
jumper problems. Only operating when the cable was set to cable
select. And another problem of only working alongside another WD
drive!!!
Click to expand...

I am sure you will find that through the years most HHDs have had lemon
models and bad reports to match. Hence the phenomenon and the "That drive is
crap" syndrome.
 
I once said WD was te best make. And a load of ppl said "NO WAY" WD ARE
TERRIBLE". They mentioned the WD40 and WD80. Said it had serious
jumper problems. Only operating when the cable was set to cable select.
And another problem of only working alongside another WD drive!!!
Click to expand...

I'd take all that with a grain of salt. There are people who are
incapable of understanding simple logic.
 
OK, Dell Dimension 8300. I have added an internal DVD player.
Nutin else.
Click to expand...

Jimmy have you installed the drive in another computer yet?
Is the drive as dead as a door nail in the other computer?
Does the logic board/controller board/daughter board on the maxtor
drive show any burnt spots or signs of shorting out that you can see?
PS: If you decide to install another controller board on the drive be
sure to match the model and "firmware".
You may find a second hand drive you can use as a donor to try
exchanging the board. Or even if someone has one that does power up
but is faulty internally?
 
this is a very good compuiter technician and an intelligent one at
that. He understands simple logic. He is well aware of people that
can't udnerstand simple logic. He helps them the whole time.
His tech help website recevies many hits. he fixes computers full
itime. the point is he's not an idiot user or an idiot technician.
He understands simple logic. understands computers. e.t.c. He's
one of us. Not one of the them.

Infact, when he mentioned about WD40/80 , another technician joked
about the drive with the cable select feature gone wrong.

So, this weren't just the words of one good comp technician

I'm not saying all WD drive are bad. on the contrary
 
Captin said:
OK, I second or third the idea of removing the drive from the case and
install it in a PC as a slave drive. I would also check the connection
inside the external case to the hard drive.I am sorry about your drive
but glad you have posted because I think people are misled with data
recovery
Hard drives usually fail for one of two basic reasons.Firstly power is
either not transmitted or short circuited. Putting it in the freezer
will not help. If you really need the data , often the printed circuit
controller boards on hard drives can be replaced, even if it is
tempory to power the drive up and recover the data. The second and
often bigger challenge are internal problems which may include
something physically broken or distorted. For example when a system
boots up but due to distortion it loses recognition of the partition,(
sometimes the freezer will help)
Without a lot of info I am being broad.Your drive is not booting and
it seems to be a power problem...??????
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. Most on this board still give me *way* too much
credit. I am still uncertain what an IDE adapter is. I may have one in
all this PC stuff I have.
I conclude I have to take a razor knife tothe Maxtor case in order to
make it an internal drive.
BTW, I had the Maxtor at the bottom of a stack - the stack consisting of
an Iomega HD on top of the Maxtor. Maxtor people said the HD was stackable.
Freezer ida didn't work.
circuit controoler board. Cost? Where do I get one?
 
J said:
Thanks for the reply. Most on this board still give me *way* too much
credit. I am still uncertain what an IDE adapter is. I may have one
in all this PC stuff I have.
I conclude I have to take a razor knife tothe Maxtor case in order to
make it an internal drive.
BTW, I had the Maxtor at the bottom of a stack - the stack consisting
of an Iomega HD on top of the Maxtor. Maxtor people said the HD was
stackable. Freezer ida didn't work.
circuit controoler board. Cost? Where do I get one?
Click to expand...

No razor. Remove the drive from the USB case. Set the jumper to slave.
Place the drive in the PC case. Connect the power cable. Connect the IDE
cable. This is the only other cable you will deal with. It will be the same
cable the main drive is connected to. If this cable does not have a
connector for the second drive you will need a cable that does. I would try
this before you do anything else. Then boot to BIOS for auto detect and boot
to Windows and you are done.


J.
 
Jimmy said:
No razor. Remove the drive from the USB case. Set the jumper to slave.
Place the drive in the PC case. Connect the power cable. Connect the IDE
cable. This is the only other cable you will deal with. It will be the same
cable the main drive is connected to. If this cable does not have a
connector for the second drive you will need a cable that does. I would try
this before you do anything else. Then boot to BIOS for auto detect and boot
to Windows and you are done.


J.
Click to expand...
OK, I get that. But I still have to break into the case and I see no
screws.
 
J said:
OK, I get that. But I still have to break into the case and I see no
screws.
Click to expand...

I believe you have to loosen the outer frame in a method not to break the
tabs that hold it together. I have a Firewire version and it is not
difficult to do when you inspect the assembly. I have swapped many drives to
this case with no problems.

J.
 
J said:
OK, I get that. But I still have to break into the case and I see no
screws.
Click to expand...

Ok, I just took mine apart and it took me 15 seconds to find out that if
you apply a flat screw driver to the rear of the outer frame it dislodges
easily.
 
OK, Dell Dimension 8300. I have added an internal DVD player.
Nutin else.
Click to expand...

OK, so you have the drive ready to install into a system?

Installing DVD drives and hard drives is similar. You have two
cables to connect. You have an IDE cable and a power socket.
I would not install the Maxtor as a slave on the same IDE cable as the
existing hard drive in the Dell.....
If you have a DVD rom and a CD or DVD burner sharing a cable I would
unplug one of them to make way for the Maxtor.
Rule of thumb..
Connect Slave drives to the middle of the cable and Master on the
end.
Second rule of thumb.
If for some quirky reason it works better with the slave device on the
end then don’t listen to the first "Rule of thumb"
Jumper settings are on the net if the diagram on the drive is not very
helpful
PS: Rumor is that Maxtor drives run hot and Maxtor say they designed
them for this.I don’t think it’s good for any drive but especially a
Maxtor to be stuck in a case with little ventilation .

If the drive is dead as a do do after you have attempted to boot it
up?
It may be that the problem is not the power supply in the external
case but the hard drive itself.
As far as I know Maxtor don’t sell controller boards seperate?
I have sometimes bought another new drive just to borrow the
controller board to help me recover data...Thing is with the USB to
IDE convertor they still rely on some of the circuitry on the
controller board and I don’t know that you can buy one with it’s own
power supply for $20?
 
Captin said:
OK, so you have the drive ready to install into a system?

Installing DVD drives and hard drives is similar. You have
two cables to connect. You have an IDE cable and a power
socket.
I would not install the Maxtor as a slave on the same IDE
cable as the existing hard drive in the Dell.....
If you have a DVD rom and a CD or DVD burner sharing a cable I
would unplug one of them to make way for the Maxtor.
Rule of thumb..
Connect Slave drives to the middle of the cable and Master on
the end.
Second rule of thumb.
If for some quirky reason it works better with the slave
device on the end then don't listen to the first "Rule of
thumb"
Jumper settings are on the net if the diagram on the drive is
not very helpful
PS: Rumor is that Maxtor drives run hot and Maxtor say they
designed them for this.I don't think it's good for any drive
but especially a Maxtor to be stuck in a case with little
ventilation .

If the drive is dead as a do do after you have attempted to
boot it up?
It may be that the problem is not the power supply in the
external case but the hard drive itself.
As far as I know Maxtor don't sell controller boards seperate?

I have sometimes bought another new drive just to borrow the
controller board to help me recover data...Thing is with the
USB to IDE convertor they still rely on some of the circuitry
on the controller board and I don't know that you can buy one
with it's own power supply for $20?
Click to expand...

Tid bits only relevant if you have a slave drive that works

It can be handy to have Windows installed on a slave drive.

If you have a Maxtor drive ATA 133 and your other drive is ATA 100
they may not work together in harmony on the same IDE cable/channel.

If you have a Maxtor drive ATA 133 and your other drive is ATA 133
they still might not work together in harmony on the same IDE
cable/channel.

If you can, use your fastest drive as the Master.

Data transfer between the two drives is usually faster if each drive
is on a different IDE cable/channel.

Consider putting the slave in a rack to enable it to be removed in a
minute without dismantling your computer?

Rule of thumb is to install slave drives in the middle and masters on
the end of IDE cables, though don’t be close minded.

Don’t install a Master IDE drive in a removable rack if the system
runs flatout 24/7...piddly little fans do little to combat the extra
heat .

Don’t stack one hard drive moreless on top of the other one , leave
some room.

Use 80 pin IDE cables for hard drives

Double check your jumper settings if things don’t seem right
......................................................................
...................................
 
Captin said:
Tid bits only relevant if you have a slave drive that works

It can be handy to have Windows installed on a slave drive.

If you have a Maxtor drive ATA 133 and your other drive is ATA 100
they may not work together in harmony on the same IDE cable/channel.

If you have a Maxtor drive ATA 133 and your other drive is ATA 133
they still might not work together in harmony on the same IDE
cable/channel.

If you can, use your fastest drive as the Master.

Data transfer between the two drives is usually faster if each drive
is on a different IDE cable/channel.

Consider putting the slave in a rack to enable it to be removed in a
minute without dismantling your computer?

Rule of thumb is to install slave drives in the middle and masters on
the end of IDE cables, though don’t be close minded.

Don’t install a Master IDE drive in a removable rack if the system
runs flatout 24/7...piddly little fans do little to combat the extra
heat .

Don’t stack one hard drive moreless on top of the other one , leave
some room.

Use 80 pin IDE cables for hard drives

Double check your jumper settings if things don’t seem right
.....................................................................
..................................
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response.
You are often over my head.
I have removed the Maxtor from its case. Looks now like any ol internal.
ATA133? Unsure what it is or how to check if the Maxtor is one.
Rack? Uncertain about this too. Is this inside/outside the PC?
Controller board? OK, I'm looking at the Maxtor now. Where is the
controller board?
 
OK, Dell Dimension 8300. I have added an internal DVD player.
Nutin else.
Click to expand...

Sorry,

ATA 100 and ATA 133 are moreless the speed each drive is capable of
transferring data. Sometimes drives of different brands and or speed
do not work properly on the same IDE channel.
Tid Bits was moreless a rant on how you can install the second drive
to
avoid any hassles
I guess the main thing is to plug the drive in and see if it accepts
power and registers in the BIOS / on the desktop as a drive. We can
sort it later if you can’t get to the data?
Where you plug in the power socket and IDE cable to the drive is
part of the controller board/logic board..Simply it’s a printed
circuit and often when it’s damaged you can see where it’s shorted
out...
First you just need to plug the drive in and see what happens. Have
you?
Are you sure you even need a controller board?
Your Dell Dimension 8300
It is an Intel Pentium 4 based machine?
It is a tower not a desktop case?
Just to test the drive I would open the case and disconnect the
cables from the back of my DVD rom and simply plug the hard drive into
them.
We are hardly worried about installing a suspect drive with all 4
screws just yet?
Play follow the leader with the jumper settings on the DVD rom .Just
set the jumpers either cable select/master or slave to match whatever
the jumpers on the DVD rom were and restart the computer?
 
Have (had?) a Maxtor 80G external USB hard drive connected to
my XP PC.
A few days ago I found it was no longer recognized by the PC.
Maxtor
suggested unplugging the USB cable and power to the HD,
waiting 10
seconds and plugging the power back in. I waited hours.
Plugged it
back in but it didn't help. I did notice an LED on the front
of the HD
blinking continuously for minutes. Maxtor says this indicates
a 'failed'
drive and suggests I send it to a data recovery outfit.
I have read some USB HDs can fail because of connections
inside the HD
case and turning it into a PCI hard drive may make it
readable.
Is there a way to confirm the HD 'failed.'
Is it possible the connections are bad and the HD is
salvagable?
Is there an option to a $1000 recovery effort?
Click to expand...

The rack I was waffling about is something to consider later.. A
caddy/removable rack is installed under your CD/DVD drives , it is as
wide as a CD drive with a slide out tray which enables you to install
and remove a hard drive in half a minute flat. They are lucky to be
worth $20 and if it’s left empty without a drive at all it doesn’t
matter
 
Hi everybody,

Two days ago my Maxtor Personal Storage 5000DV did exactly the same as
the one in question here, so i found this thread in search of a
solution through Google, since maxtor claims there's no warranty even
though it's only 14 months old.

I have a few questions:
- Will it be easy to see that i have had the case open?
- Are you sure it's a standard ATA drive that's inside?
- Anyone who could write me a short step-by-step guide on how to
split the case from the drive without ruining it?

Thanks for a lot of great info so far!

Ps.
This is the second time i have a broken 5000DV, but last time it was
without important data. I've also exchanged a few normal ATA drives
from Maxtor, so when i recover my data i'm done with this disc and
i'll install some seagates instead.
 
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