Dead HD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MisterSkippy
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MisterSkippy

I have a 40 gig maxtor running off a Maxtor/Promise Ultra 100
controller card as drive E. The drive was working fine yesterday as it
has been for the past couple of years Today nothing. Controller card
will recognize a couple of old drives so I'm pretty sure that is not
the problem. Tried different power connector, ribbon cable etc. Didn't
exhibit any signs of imminent failure. No noise, no nothing, just no
function. I have it in the freezer now to see if I can coax it to work
and will then refreeze and copy to its replacement.
Any other possibilities?
TIA
DFB


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I have a 40 gig maxtor running off a Maxtor/Promise Ultra 100
controller card as drive E. The drive was working fine yesterday as it
has been for the past couple of years Today nothing. Controller card
will recognize a couple of old drives so I'm pretty sure that is not
the problem. Tried different power connector, ribbon cable etc. Didn't
exhibit any signs of imminent failure. No noise, no nothing, just no
function. I have it in the freezer now to see if I can coax it to work
and will then refreeze and copy to its replacement.
Any other possibilities?
TIA
DFB


For email remove "_no_spam_"
Click to expand...


The freezer was a bit premature, ideally you should first attach
it to integrated motherboard IDE channel, see if it's detected,
and run the manufacturer's diagnostics while hooked to
motherboard controller. Then if it finds it, generates trouble
code, time to see if warranty is still in effect, some 40GB were
old enough to fall under Maxtor's old 3 yr. warranty, I'm sure I
have some drives here still under warranty until sometime in '05,
as 3 yr warranty offering on new drives ended in Oct. '02, IIRC.

Do not try it and then plan to refreeze it.
After you remove from freezer, IF it works at all you may have
one attempt, a few minutes after powering up to copy off data.
 
The freezer was a bit premature, ideally you should first attach
it to integrated motherboard IDE channel, see if it's detected,
and run the manufacturer's diagnostics while hooked to
motherboard controller. Then if it finds it, generates trouble
code, time to see if warranty is still in effect, some 40GB were
old enough to fall under Maxtor's old 3 yr. warranty, I'm sure I
have some drives here still under warranty until sometime in '05,
as 3 yr warranty offering on new drives ended in Oct. '02, IIRC.

Do not try it and then plan to refreeze it.
After you remove from freezer, IF it works at all you may have
one attempt, a few minutes after powering up to copy off data.
Click to expand...

Based on the S/N the drive is still under warranty until 2006.
Apparently I bought it about 1.5 years ago. Thought it was longer.
I never could get the MB IDE channels to see the drive no matter how
many setting I finagled with so I tried the Maxtor/Promise card that
came with a 100% rebate along with a 30 gig I bought for my daughter
a few years ago. It worked with that just fine so I never pursued why
the MB IDE didn't want to see it. I tried again today to get it on the
secondary IDE channel but for some reason it kept freezing the machine
both as master and as slave . I know there used to be a "spin-up"
noise that I heard previously during start-up that is no longer
present. I'm guessing that was the 40 spinning up when it was
functioning.
I'm think of an advance RMA and hope that I'll be able to transfer the
data from the now frozen drive to the new one.
I just now remembered that during last week I tried to run ScanDefrag
on this drive only and then Disk Defragmenter on this drive only. Both
caused freeze-ups. I assume now that might be significant.
If you have any further thoughts I would be most interested.
As usual, I appreciate your time and effort.
Regards
DFB





For email remove "_no_spam_"
 
I SHOULD have wrote that your first attempt is to copy off the
data, not run diagnostics. Diagnostics come afterwards, if the
drive only has a little time left (if that) it'd be wise to use
that time effectively.
Based on the S/N the drive is still under warranty until 2006.
Apparently I bought it about 1.5 years ago. Thought it was longer.
I never could get the MB IDE channels to see the drive no matter how
many setting I finagled with so I tried the Maxtor/Promise card that
came with a 100% rebate along with a 30 gig I bought for my daughter
a few years ago. It worked with that just fine so I never pursued why
the MB IDE didn't want to see it. I tried again today to get it on the
secondary IDE channel but for some reason it kept freezing the machine
both as master and as slave . I know there used to be a "spin-up"
noise that I heard previously during start-up that is no longer
present. I'm guessing that was the 40 spinning up when it was
functioning.
Click to expand...

Potentially the system was old enough that the drive capacity
wasn't supported?
I'm think of an advance RMA and hope that I'll be able to transfer the
data from the now frozen drive to the new one.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan, good luck.
I just now remembered that during last week I tried to run ScanDefrag
on this drive only and then Disk Defragmenter on this drive only. Both
caused freeze-ups. I assume now that might be significant.
If you have any further thoughts I would be most interested.
As usual, I appreciate your time and effort.
Regards
DFB
Click to expand...

Sounds like drive is dead or nearly so, but you might check your
power supply voltage levels... if 5V or 12V are too low (or PSU
is failing) that might be a cause.
 
I have a 40 gig maxtor running off a Maxtor/Promise Ultra 100
controller card as drive E. The drive was working fine yesterday as it
has been for the past couple of years Today nothing. Controller card
will recognize a couple of old drives so I'm pretty sure that is not
the problem. Tried different power connector, ribbon cable etc. Didn't
exhibit any signs of imminent failure. No noise, no nothing, just no
function. I have it in the freezer now to see if I can coax it to work
and will then refreeze and copy to its replacement.
Any other possibilities?
TIA
DFB


For email remove "_no_spam_"
Click to expand...

Download the free Maxtor"
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm
and see what it says?



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I SHOULD have wrote that your first attempt is to copy off the
data, not run diagnostics. Diagnostics come afterwards, if the
drive only has a little time left (if that) it'd be wise to use
that time effectively.


Potentially the system was old enough that the drive capacity
wasn't supported?


Sounds like a plan, good luck.


Sounds like drive is dead or nearly so, but you might check your
power supply voltage levels... if 5V or 12V are too low (or PSU
is failing) that might be a cause.
Click to expand...

Kony..
Many thanks for your efforts.
Drive is dead. No matter how I dick with it or where I place it , no
response. Critical data was backed up to a CDRW previously and has
been transferred to a new 80 gig drive from CompUSA bought today. I
emailed Maxtor to find out what happens to returned drives. This one
has some sensitive financials on it and unless I can wipe it or be
100% sure that there is no possibility of it being repaired and resold
as a refurb, I'd rather give it a whack with a sledgehammer and trash
it than try to recoup the $40 value with the RMA.
Again, many thanks
DFB


For email remove "_no_spam_"
 
On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 00:36:46 GMT, MisterSkippy

| Drive is dead. No matter how I dick with it or where I place it , no
| response. Critical data was backed up to a CDRW previously and has
| been transferred to a new 80 gig drive from CompUSA bought today. I
| emailed Maxtor to find out what happens to returned drives. This one
| has some sensitive financials on it and unless I can wipe it or be
| 100% sure that there is no possibility of it being repaired and resold
| as a refurb, I'd rather give it a whack with a sledgehammer and trash
| it than try to recoup the $40 value with the RMA.

If you can lay your hands on a bulk eraser for magnetic tape (Radio
Shack used to sell them), you can at least destroy data and formatting
to the point only an expert might be able to recover anything. That's
what I always do with HDDs before I junk them.

I don't know how much outright damage that does to the inside of a
HDD, though, so you may want to confirm with Maxtor first if you
decide to try it.

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§
 
Many thanks for your efforts.
Drive is dead. No matter how I dick with it or where I place it , no
response. Critical data was backed up to a CDRW previously and has
been transferred to a new 80 gig drive from CompUSA bought today. I
emailed Maxtor to find out what happens to returned drives. This one
has some sensitive financials on it and unless I can wipe it or be
100% sure that there is no possibility of it being repaired and resold
as a refurb, I'd rather give it a whack with a sledgehammer and trash
it than try to recoup the $40 value with the RMA.
Again, many thanks
DFB
Click to expand...

Shame about the drive but it might be worthwhile to RMA it
anyway...You might ask them as I'd imagine they make quite sure
the old data is unrecoverable, and not subject to employee
pilfering.
 
Shame about the drive but it might be worthwhile to RMA it
anyway...You might ask them as I'd imagine they make quite sure
the old data is unrecoverable, and not subject to employee
pilfering.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the comments as usual. I did a lot of digging and hit the
"contact us" area. The was box that asked what the contact was about
and after (IIRC) hitting "submit" a page came up explaining this exact
issue. Apparently, when the returned drives are tested they use an
automated machine, not a PC, that does the tests and writes zeros to
the drive to obliterate existing data. So says Maxtor, anyway. I'm
still debating.
Again, thanks
DFB


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