Musical Maxtor

[mujjuman]

hahaha you got that right

[digitalboy91]

I dont know if this is still active but ill give it a try.
So yesterday I went to turn off my computer and just as I reached the keyboard my Diamondmax 10 300gb hd started beeping. But its not the musical beep like in the .wav but more of a clicking.

Also I dont really want to give it a flick or tap just yet because Ive read that it'll fail completly soon after. Has anybody had the drive go on successfully after the initial failure? The reason I ask is that I had/have at least 200 gigs or valuable data on it. I only have a Cd burner and backing everything up would add up to nearly 300 disks.

Should I give it a flick and try and fix it or go out and buy a dvd writer?

Lance H

[mujjuman]

dont hold me responsible, but first buy the DVD burner, so that if the HDD comes alive after tapping, you can back it up.

[teeooh]

I'm sitting here with the platters looking up at me. I can't see how the move.
I don't want to try anything without having some idea of how they move.

Anybody with insights?

[Cat 4]

My maxtor 300g started bleeping to me the other day, so a google later and here I am. The first thing to do when this happens is to power the system down and remove the hard drive. Hold it in your hand, connect the power supply and switch on the computer. Can you feel the HDD spinning up? The main cause for these maxtors failing seems to be disk motor failure. If it does spin up then try changing the PCB underneath the HDD from another HDD (obviously same make, model). I have read that PCB's are unique to each HDD, but some people have said it has worked for them! If you can't feel/hear the motor spinning up, then the things jammed. Now you could be one of the lucky ones and give it a tap with a screwdriver handle or something similar and hey presto, it starts spinning. In which case, power down, reconnect to the system, power up and back up your data. Because that HDD is not going to last much longer! (You could try the freezer trick, I did, but still no joy. When that motor is stuck, it stuck! But then again, it seems to have worked for some people). Mine wasn't spinning up, only bleeping, and no amount of "tapping" got the thing going again. I've got 100g of data on this HDD and I'm not giving in lightly! Anyway, I finally decided to lift the lid, only to find that the motor was seized solid. Now, the disk should spin quite freely with the heads parked, ie. close to the centre of the disk. What I did to free mine was put the HDD in a vice, find two rivets roughly the same size as the holes in the centre spindle. Put the rivets in the holes opposite each other, then using a screwdriver placed between the two rivets, try and turn the spindle. I had to get a larger screwdriver as it bent my smaller one (thats how siezed it was). Managed to free it but it was still quite stiff so I had to hand turn it using one of the rivets for quite a while. Put the thing back together, connected back up and hey presto, the drive showed up with all my files intact. Selected all my files to copy them to a different drive, then the thing locked up again. So had to go through the whole procedure again. In my haste I dropped one of the rivets onto the platters and it made a nice little mark. So now what I plan to do is get some file recovery software and drag the files off that way as I have a hunch that the MFT has gone screwy. Needless to say, do not touch the platters or the heads at any time, or your disk will be useless!!! I washed all my tools before using them near the disk, and blew any dust off the platters with a compressed air can (very gently) before replacing the cover.

Please, I cannot guarantee that this will work for you, it's just what I did and I thought I would share this info with you. True, I haven't got my files back yet, but will post the results when I get the file recovery software.

Good luck Teeooh and anybody else in the same situation. For everyone else, BACK UP YOUR DATA!

[mujjuman]

for some peopple its not even motor failure, it has something to do with the plates and the thing that reads them (arm?)

[pranna]

Got the same beeps here. Tried tapping, no luck. Tried in a different computer, no luck. Played with the ribbon cable connector at the back of the drive and it started spinning! Backing up right now.

[mujjuman]

tahts good. all those who backed up their data are pretty luck.

wow it seems that there are ALOT of maxtors failing....

[silverten]

Thank you Thank you Thank you

I know this thread was started in Nov 2002, thanks for keeping it around - the knowledge is EXTREAMLY useful.

I too have the dreaded Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120 GB ATA/133 HDD, but it's been functioning for many years. It survived Motherboard replacements and has generaly be reliable... until now.

I tried the freezer thing and it still played it's tune. I get one of those USB 2.0 shells for HDs and in that I shook the drive and it sprang back to life! I am backing up data as I type now.... Luckily I have a second computer... Always good to have a second computer for just such events!

I would have lost code and programs that I've been collecting for years. This is first crash I've had and I've learned my lesson. You don't miss a thing 'til it's lost and luckily, this time it was pulled back. I'm going to start regualrly chagning out my drive in all my PC on a yearly basis just so I won't have old hardware failing on me.

ScottW, your posts prompted me to join and to personally thank you for your good information.

Thank you Thank you Thank you

[mujjuman]

your welcome :P

glad you got your data back. yeah i had teh same drive as you.

i totally feel you, you dont miss the data until the drive actually fails on you... except i couldnt bring my data back!!!