Here's kind of a good news/bad new story. After having my Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hit the floor, and experiencing the "Maxotr Melody", I tried all of the advice on this thread. When none of that worked, I popped off the cover, and found that my platters had seized. They were frozen solid, I couldnt' even move them with my hands.
Like the other guye did earlier, I found 2 nails that fit firmly into two of the holes opposite each other, stuck a screwdriver between them, and forced it to turn. After working with it for about 5 minutes, the platters were spinning freely.
Now, when I plug the hard drive in, the disk spins up like it's supposed to, but it made a scary screeching noise. I powered down, took the cover off again, and the reader had scored the top platter right around the center spindle. I moved the reader back to the outside of the platter, put the top back on and powered it up again. It's spinning right now, with no funny noises, but my computer won't recognize the drive.
I'm sure I've screwed it up beyond any hope for recovery, but I sent it off to Gillware today in the hopes they can get some of it back. They'll check the drive and let me know what's recoverable and what it will cost before they charge me a dime, so I figured it was worth a shot. It will take a few days for them to receive it, and they said after that they will let me know in 3 to 5 days what files can be recovered.
I'll post back after I hear from Gillware to let you know if I got naything back, and how much it cost.
What do you know? Another new user simply because of this thread.
I was playing music on my computer when BANG! Music stopped playing, after looking around the room thinking "what the hell was that" I noticed my external Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB HDD was...dead. I switched it off, then back on...and then I heard the music. The music I have never ever heard before - the music of my nightmares.
So I searched google, found this place and tried tapping, hitting and pretty much wacking the HDD in hopes that the reader would unstick from the platter(s) (i dont really understand how HDD work...). No luck.
I need to get like...well 250GB worth of data off the drive...and I have no idea what to do. Some people on this thread said to open the drive up (carefully of course), but I don't feel comfortable opening up a drive - I've never done it before (although I did already take the HDD out of the external frame). Is this something that I would be able to do without wrecking the data on the drive? And is anyone able to provide strict instructions as to what to do if I should open up the drive?! My warranty is long gone, so I can fiddle, hit, smack or burn the HDD in any way I want - as long as I get my data off it!!
Any help would be appreciated soo soooo soooooo much.
Davey
Edit: Had a spare very very OLD Maxtor HDD lying around (it was 3.5GB big...hahahahaha) anyway because I have never really seen the inside of a HDD before, I unscrewed it...opened it up and well...interesting. Just a single plate that is like a perfect mirror. I dont know how different this 3.5GB very ancient maxtor hdd would be compared to this 250GB musical instrument I have here with me, but would it be much different do you think?
I can also see how easily the platter could get...its incredible. Considering i was going to throw away this 3.5 GB one, I put my finger prints all over it and such. However I can see how easily the head reader and the platter could get stuck together...
But anywho, any ieas, please let me know! I still dont have the balls to open up my 250GB!
Last edited by dlucant : May 19th, 2008 at 04:46 AM.
Gilware was unable to retreive ANY of my data because the platters were severely damaged. This was due to my opening the case to get the drive spinning again, and then the reader scratching the platter surface when I hooked it back up.
If you want to get your data back, here's the advice of someone who failed: Don't open the enclosure! Send it to Gillware and allow them to analyze the drive. (I have no affiliation with Gillware, they are just the recovery service I tried, and they were the only ones I found that would let you know what data was recoverable, and how much it would cost, BEFORE they charged you anything.)
Best of luck to all who face the musical maxtor malady!
That is so crazy! I have never heard of a hard drive beeping like that before. Wow! Almost thought this was a hard drive meant for the NSA or something.
They don't make 'em like they used to. Here I have an old 3.60 GB Quantum Fireball from the early 90's and still runs. I use it in a hard drive enclosure.
Ok, I have taken a video of my musical maxtor in action. When the lid is off the HDD, that wierd noise is actually pretty damn loud. I tried moving the head reader to try and unstick it from the platter...but it didn't work. In fact, I don't even know if this problem is "stiction"...however, I do get that music...
Let me know what you think and if there is anything I could do to try and get the bugger working again! I'm still so mad about all my data...
You should have never opened the hard drive. Take it to a professional company to recover the data.
Do not mess around with it any more! The more you do, the less likely it is of recovering any data. Never tap, bump, open a hard drive. Let the pro's look at it! You might as well kiss the data good bye.
BTW- When I say "professional company", I don't mean Geek Squad either..
Last edited by Keymaker : May 29th, 2008 at 01:33 AM.
You should have never opened the hard drive. Take it to a professional company to recover the data.
Do not mess around with it any more! The more you do, the less likely it is of recovering any data. Never tap, bump, open a hard drive. Let the pro's look at it! You might as well kiss the data good bye.
BTW- When I say "professional company", I don't mean Geek Squad either..
Can't afford professionals to look at it. The data that was on there is replaceable - just going to take me a long time to get it all back (all downloads that has taken me years to accumulate).
Btw, a way to remove "stiction" is to hit to your HDD...something I have done a lot and I still have musical Maxtor.
hardware
prices 
I use it in a hard drive enclosure.
