[Discuss] Hard Drive Death

[John Blomfield]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I had already checked most 
things but just to be sure I did it all again. My motherboard can 
accommodate up to 6 SATA drives and I had 3 installed including the dead 
one, so I was able to change cables and connections to effectively 
eliminate the possibility of faulty motherboard, power supply, 
connectors and cables by swapping good and dead drives around. I have 
concluded that the problem is the HD controller board or drive motor. I 
have recovered a lot of data from various backups and that which is 
missing is now in the "nice to have" category and can be re-created with 
some work and time. At the moment I don't think its worth my spending 
more time or money on trying to recover the latter from the dead drive. 
I hope I won't find something critical missing in the future!

My problem now is to decide how to reconfigure my desktop for the 
future. Its now about 5 or more years old but is still fast enough for 
my needs AMD Athlon 64 5200+ CPU, new graphics card and power supply 2 
years ago. It has a high power consumption, is a bit noisy by modern 
standards and I lust after a Zotac ZBOX mini or something similar with 
SSDs. However I think I may migrate my system on a new 2.5" HD, use the 
two old remaining 3.5" HD's for backup and set up some cron jobs to 
avoid future problems. I already have two portable USB harddrives that I 
use for my monthly backups. Perhaps I should make those weekly? The 
logic behind the 2.5" drive is that I can then use it in any future mini 
computer I might buy.

John


On 01/02/2014 03:16 PM, pw wrote:
>
> If the drive doesn't even ID in bios the possible problems can be:
>
> -Power supply
> -HD controller board
> -SATA cable
> -SATA controller on the MOBO
>
> The best way to diagnose is to isolate each possibility separately and 
> deduce through reduction.
>
> a.) Move the drive to a different machine and test it there.
> b.) Check your power supply. Many HD issues are caused by failed PSU.
> c.) Check your cables. Re-Seat ( unplug + replug ) SATA cables, 
> including power, both ends.
> d.) Check you MOBO/SATA. Move a working drive to the problematic SATA 
> port. See if it fails. If it changes there is a MOBO problem.
>
> Swapping the controller on the back of the drive is possible only if
> the boards come from matching drives from the  same factory run
> within the same week/month. The HD part numbers need to match completely
> as well as factory and date of manufacture. Use anti-static measures
> while swapping boards. Be gentle and slow.
>
> DON'T crack the drive seal and try and move platters to a different
> housing. This will kill your drive unless you have a 'clean-room'
> , a way to recharge the 'atmospheric fluid' inside the drive, and
> the ability to reseal the hermetics.
>
> If you have a similar (same) HD, that works, that was purchased at the 
> same time, it would be better to buy 2 new hard drives now. Back up the
> good one and swap it out. Then perform the brain surgery transferring
> the on-board controller board to the failed drive. You will need to buy
> new drive(s) anyway since they are both ageing at the same rate.
> This means that the one that is still functioning will likely fail
> soon as well and should be replaced.
>
> In general, if drives are older than 3-4 years, they should be replaced
> as general routine maintenance.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
>
> On 14-01-02 10:46 AM, John Blomfield wrote:
>> On returning after a week away visiting for Christmas, I receive an
>> unpleasant New Year surprise of a dead HD. That is the BIOS does not
>> recognize the drive, nor does a live CD. In the rush to leave I had
>> neglected my usual monthly backup so I have lost about 6 weeks of data,
>> except for some critical stuff that I backup more regularly. However, I
>> would like to recover the lost stuff if possible. The drive a WD 3.5"
>> 250 GB appears not to be damaged physically in anyway and the control
>> board is not showing signs of burning etc. The advice on the Internet
>> runs from "easy to fix" to "don't even attempt it", when it comes to
>> changing the control board, which is the most likely problem. I have two
>> other HD's that are identical to the dead one so in theory I could
>> change a control board to attempt to recover some data. Some "advice"
>> states its just a question of swapping boards and others came you also
>> must "transfer the firmwear from the damaged board to the new board",
>> since the data structure is unique. However, I don't want to do the
>> latter as I might end up with two dead HDs!
>>
>> The lost data is not life and death stuff as I have the most critical
>> stuff backed up - just means a bit of time recreating the data. My
>> dilemma is will it take more time to recover the data from the dead HD
>> than to recreate it?
>>
>> Has anyone ever attempted this or other solutions for recovering data.
>>
>> I guess this is the first time this has happened to me in the last 30
>> years of PC computing - sagely advice on using RAID etc already noted
>> and acknowledged. I shall no doubt review my future backup strategy to
>> make sure my failing memory does not let me down again.
>>
>
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-- 
John Blomfield
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Old John B's Linux Notes http://www.oldjohnbslinux.wordpress.com