Hard Drive will not Spin - at all

  • Thread starter Thread starter David
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David

I had a 400gb Seagate drive in an external enclosure. I was
transferring files from one computer to another. I finished copying
files on the drive, and was moving the drive across the room. I had it
on the ground, moved the cord slightly and the drive spun around
violently. As if the platters were just frozen in an instant and spun
the case around.

When the hard drive is powered up, it does not spin, although makes a
very low noise, almost a hum.

I tried...
freezing the drive
plugging it into many different computers
tapping slightly on the sides of the drive
Turning it on and off quickly
Shaking it quickly to try to release 'stiction'
Replacing the PCB board with a good drive (of the same Product Number
and Firmware)

After all that failed, I decided to open the drive up quickly, in a
make-shift clean environment to take a peek. I pushed the seek arm
slightly to make sure it was not stuck, it wasn't. Although i tried to
rotate the platters (by pushing on the spindle, and on the outside
edges of the platters) and they were STUCK! These platters will not
budge. They will not even move in the slightest bit. I am thinking it
might be the motor or bearings, but I don't know why they were go
frozen so suddenly.

I need this data and don't want to spend the $1000 that these
companies are asking for. I was considering swapping the platters (but
seeing as they need PERFECT alignment) I need a hard drive platter
exchange tool, which I can't seem to find (but i know they exist).

Has ANYONE run into this problem? Anyone have any advice? I need help!
 
David said:
I had a 400gb Seagate drive in an external enclosure. I was
transferring files from one computer to another. I finished copying
files on the drive, and was moving the drive across the room. I had it
on the ground, moved the cord slightly and the drive spun around
violently. As if the platters were just frozen in an instant and spun
the case around.

When the hard drive is powered up, it does not spin, although makes a
very low noise, almost a hum.

I tried...
freezing the drive
plugging it into many different computers
tapping slightly on the sides of the drive
Turning it on and off quickly
Shaking it quickly to try to release 'stiction'
Replacing the PCB board with a good drive (of the same Product Number
and Firmware)

After all that failed, I decided to open the drive up quickly, in a
make-shift clean environment to take a peek. I pushed the seek arm
slightly to make sure it was not stuck, it wasn't. Although i tried to
rotate the platters (by pushing on the spindle, and on the outside
edges of the platters) and they were STUCK! These platters will not
budge. They will not even move in the slightest bit. I am thinking it
might be the motor or bearings, but I don't know why they were go
frozen so suddenly.

I need this data and don't want to spend the $1000 that these
companies are asking for. I was considering swapping the platters (but
seeing as they need PERFECT alignment) I need a hard drive platter
exchange tool, which I can't seem to find (but i know they exist).

Has ANYONE run into this problem? Anyone have any advice? I need help!

At this time it sounds like it would be cheaper to recover the files being
transferred from the source PC. Easier to undelete from a machine that is
still working, provided the user has ceased using the machine so as to
reduce the overwriting of the marked "free" space on the drive.

Remove the source drive and use a drive copier to clone the source drive
prior to attempting any recovery operations. Even booting the source drive
might cause one of the log files to overwrite the files you want to recover.

As for the original drive, it's toast unless you want to try spending the
money needed to recover the data. Opening the case in a non-clean
environment has trashed it for good anyway unless it is properly cleaned
again.
 
Has ANYONE run into this problem? Anyone have any advice? I need help!


I have the VERY SAME problem now with my 500 GB Seagate opened in
fornt of me.. totally blocked plates altogether :-(
Have you managed to do anything useful afterwards?
 
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