Hard Drive Dead. Need it spinning

Rosco

Rosco

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I got a external hard drive in yesterday. It was one that need a power source. what ended up happening is the client plugged the wrong a/c adapter. Must of been the wrong voltage or something. Anyways he bring it to me i remove it from the case. hooked it up to a test rig wouldnt boot up. not even to post. nothing on screen. hooked it up to my sata to usb which i know works( i have used it since).

Here my question anyway you guys know how to get it spinning?

I have heard things like put it in the freezers but that always seemed like on of these old wife's tails.

Thanks for any ideas. The more outside the box the better. This is a last ditch.

again thank
 
I can vouch for the "freezer trick" working for us ...quite a few times...we've had some dead drives which appeared shot...and we revived them long enough with an overnight deep freeze and pulled data from them. Over the nearly 20 years in the field...have used that trick many times and have had it work for a few of them and the clients threw rose petals at our feet for days...

BUT..that's only when certain conditions tanked the drive...shot bearings, armature motor or bearings on the way.

Your issue makes me want to bet a few pints of Guinness on the circuit board of that drive being zapped. And the freezer trick won't do a thing for that.

If you have an identical drive you can swap boards and give it a shot.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I can vouch for the "freezer trick" working for us ...quite a few times...we've had some dead drives which appeared shot...and we revived them long enough with an overnight deep freeze and pulled data from them. Over the nearly 20 years in the field...have used that trick many times and have had it work for a few of them and the clients threw rose petals at our feet for days...

BUT..that's only when certain conditions tanked the drive...shot bearings, armature motor or bearings on the way.

Your issue makes me want to bet a few pints of Guinness on the circuit board of that drive being zapped. And the freezer trick won't do a thing for that.

If you have an identical drive you can swap boards and give it a shot.
Click to expand...

You are always there for me lol.... I should just setup a retainer lol
 
Brian at 300DDR can probably help with this one. It's likely just a PCB failure and will require a swap and some firmware transferrence... he can do it as cheap as anyone.

(Username 300DDR)
 
donordrives.com for a pcb. Use their rom adaptation service(send the drive out first before they send you the pcb).. Should be under 100, usually under 70 with shipping to get a new pcb working on there.

Even an identical drive with an identical pcb might not be able to get the data without the right rom information.
 
If you know how to use a multimeter, remove the drive and check the TVS diode on the controller. I'll bet it's shorted. Just unsolder it and see if it will spin up. If so, copy the data to a good drive and you're done. If not, it's off to a pro DR outfit if the data is worth it.
 
hitachi deskstar p/n 0a35406. i have been looking for a photo of it for about 2 hours. Thanks larry i appreciate the help.
 
Rosco said:
hitachi deskstar p/n 0a35406. i have been looking for a photo of it for about 2 hours. Thanks larry i appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
I Googled "Hitachi Deskstar TVS diode picture" and the first hit (Google pictures) shows a bunch of pictures. The first picture in the matrix of results is from and article on HDDGuru forum (great forum, BTW!) about TVS diodes on a 1TB deskstar, but it's probably very similar to your drive. This specific post says the TVS diodes for the 1TB model are D3 and D4. (I had thought your drive was a 2.5" drive, but since it's 3.5", there will be two TVS diodes to check.) Look for similar diodes and test them with a multimeter. Whichever one has zero resistance in both directions or causes the diode tester to beep is your dead diode.
2i6idmt.jpg
 
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They are usually black rectangles with two leads and a stripe on one side, usually quite close to the power connection.

Too bad, I can't find a good picture (read one that is bigger than a ebay thumbnail) of the board or someone could ID it for you. HOWEVER, if it is a protection diode overprotecting, it will be shorting out a good deal of power. This means heat. If you carefully check the drive when it is plugged in, you might find that once component gets pretty hot. You can take a magnifying glass and type into Google the text on the component (or just skip this step and just remove it) to verify that it is a TVS diode, then remove it.
 
Larry Sabo said:
If you know how to use a multimeter, remove the drive and check the TVS diode on the controller. I'll bet it's shorted. Just unsolder it and see if it will spin up. If so, copy the data to a good drive and you're done. If not, it's off to a pro DR outfit if the data is worth it.
Click to expand...

Larry you are a life saver. This morning got out the multimeter and tested the diodes. I ripped off the one that read 0. It did start a small fire but once i blow it out it recognized the hard drive. I am now transferring the 172 GBs on the hard drive. If i could give you more than one rep point i would. I have about to give up. Thank you so much.
 
That's terrific, Rosco. I was just about to post a new picture (below) of that drive with almost the same part number. I assume the diode that was shorted was one of those circled in this picture. Feels so good to rescue a blown drive, doesn't it? :) Thanks for the +rep.
28am43t.jpg
 
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Larry Sabo said:
That's terrific, Rosco. I was just about to post a new picture (below) of that drive with almost the same part number. I assume the diode that was shorted was one of those circled in this picture. Feels so good to rescue a blown drive, doesn't it? :) Thanks for the +rep.
28am43t.jpg
Click to expand...

There was no middle diode. it was the bottom one in the picture. Ripped it right off. I had no idea about TVS diodes. Is this common knowledge? i feel like i should be bulking on on reading now.

i am flying on cloud 9. This client had brought it to other techs and they would not touch it. i figured there was nothing to lose to try. If i didnt get anything off it wouldnt matter. I was a last ditch effort from the start.
 
I wouldn't say it's common knowledge, unless one has come across it before (a dead hard drive after a power surge) and searched for solutions. If you are interested in learning more about hard drives and data recovery, that HDD Guru forum I mentioned is very informative, as well as the "My Hard Drive Died" video series by Scott Moulton.
 
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