resurrecting a hard drive

[MontyVeda]

This is my old hard drive.... it no longer works.

The data on the disc should be fine as the drive was screwed by powering it with the wrong polarity... blowing the motor i guess.

Do any of you boffins know if it's possible to transfer the disc from this hard drive into another, similar case (from another old HD i have knocking about)? Would it have to be an identical case? i.e. same make (seagate), same capacity (160gb), same model number... or would any old 3.5" hard drive case do?

If not... is there any other way of getting the intact data out of a busted hard drive?

 

[jamin100]

Think you'll need a specialist data recovery firm to do this

 

[MontyVeda]

Think you'll need a specialist data recovery firm to do this

what I'd like to know is what a specialist data recovery firm would do... so i can try to do it myself.

 

[vernon]

what I'd like to know is what a specialist data recovery firm would do... so i can try to do it myself.

Have clean room technology with positive ventilation.

 

[vernon]

Start your research here

Unless the data is precious I'd bin the unit. If it was precious I'd hand it over to a specialist.

 

[jamin100]

Yes as @vernon says, if you open your drives and expose the platters the dust in air will most likely kill them

 

[vernon]

How important is it? Important enough to pay a specialist firm? Unimportant enough to play with yourself?

Calling @Fnaar

 

[MontyVeda]

How important is it? Important enough to pay a specialist firm? Unimportant enough to play with yourself?

Nothing of interest really... loads of dodgy downloaded music that i could download again if i could be bothered... but the few bits and bobs I'd like to get off it is recordings of live radio broadcasts and some of the mixed mixes I made... so yes... unimportant enough to want to fiddle with it myself... if at all possible.

 

[ianrauk]

Friend of mine dropped a hard drive and it failed. All his family photo's etc.
Cost near to £400 with a specialist to get the data transferred to another drive.

 

[Rezillo]

Assuming the motor is u/s, it is an integral part of the spindle and the discs are bolted/screwed/fixed onto it. This is not fixable at home.

If it was the external controller board that was frazzled by the reverse current then swapping it might be feasible but you need an identical drive to get one from.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3088165, member: 9609"]before you bin it, get the magnets out of it, they're amazingly powerful and will come in for all manner of uses in the future.[/QUOTE]
like like and thrice like!

 

[Wobblers]

Applying power of the wrong polarity will almost certainly have fried the electronics on the circuit board on the other side of the drive. As you say, the data on the platters will be intact, and most likely the heads and drive motors too. You might be able to salvage the data by transplanting a new circuit board from an identical drive. This is the first thing that a data recovery firm will try. Find a Seagate hdd of the same model number, carefully remove the circuit board - you'll probably need a torx screwdriver of the right size and plug it into the dead drive. I'd wear an antistatic wrist strap whilst doing this. With any luck, when you power it up (careful with the polarity this time!) you'll be able to copy your data off.

Good luck!

 

[MontyVeda]

Friend of mine dropped a hard drive and it failed. All his family photo's etc.
Cost near to £400 with a specialist to get the data transferred to another drive.

Hence me thinking I'd rather have a bash myself and most likely end up having to bin it, instead of just binning it.... I'm a can do kind of guy, even if it turns out I can't most of the time

 

[MontyVeda]

... You might be able to salvage the data by transplanting a new circuit board from an identical drive. This is the first thing that a data recovery firm will try. Find a Seagate hdd of the same model number, carefully remove the circuit board - you'll probably need a torx screwdriver of the right size and plug it into the dead drive. I'd wear an antistatic wrist strap whilst doing this.
...

At last... a slightly optimistic reply. Cheers Wobbers

 

[vernon]

At last... a slightly optimistic reply. Cheers Wobbers

Why fix it when you can do this with the magnets?