Hard disk exposed to air is that fatal

[androo235]

IT's standard 3.5" WD 80gb drive. Stupidly (it's not worht explaining) I undid the screws of the casing and took the cover off exposing the disk to the air. the disk is now back in the machine it came from and as far as I can tell is oplugged in correctly etc. Did the exposure to air kill it?

 

[jefe323]

the platters probably got dust on them when you opened up the casing

 

[Jonmor68]

It's not the air that's the problem, but the contaminates in it, like dust and other microscopic particles. That's why they require clean rooms for repair.

 

[androo235]

Thanks. On restart the machine booted to the point of displaying the XP with the windows flying logo on black background. Now it doesn't seem to detect the disc at all and doesn't get past the bios. No unduly horrible noises were heard. So, yes some dust has enterred does that mean it is dead? If it is dead do youn have any idea how expensive - low hundred or thousands it would be to recover some of the data?

 

[cjl]

If it isn't seeing it, it's probably dead (which would be caused by dust or contaminates).

 

[androo235]

Do I need to get an IDE disk to replace it or are SATA disks backwardly compatible?

 

[sminlal]

IDE and SATA are not compatible - if your system has an IDE connector you need to get an IDE drive (or possibly buy a SATA drive with some sort of IDE-to-SATA converter).

 

[enderbean]

Thanks. On restart the machine booted to the point of displaying the XP with the windows flying logo on black background. Now it doesn't seem to detect the disc at all and doesn't get past the bios. No unduly horrible noises were heard. So, yes some dust has enterred does that mean it is dead? If it is dead do youn have any idea how expensive - low hundred or thousands it would be to recover some of the data?

What happened between you getting the XP logo and the computer no longer detecting the HDD??

It isn't a case of a fatal flu strain infecting the drive while taking a walk around the desk, people have drives out of PCs all the time during repair upgrade, swap....etc drives usually only die due to Heat, shock, something physically wrong internally or some bad firmware

Check your connections and try again, check the power and data cable for damage, tight connection

Are you sure when you replugged the drive you plugged it into the same IDE channel?

Check the bios for anything out of the ordinay if it is an old system especially with the HDD being IDE maybe the channel is disabled in the bios set to Auto and try again

Finally try plugging the HDD into a working system using USB (buy or borrow or steal an Enclosure or an IDE to USB cable) and see what happens

To recover data is $$$ so try to weed out as many possibilities before going that route

Cost of recovery depends usually in my experience on the total size of the drive not the size of data you want to recover but shop around and see what happens.

best of luck

 

[Ubrales]

^1 enderbean!

 

[hang-the-9]

If the PC does not get past the BIOS, it may not be a platter issue, but the controller board. Controller board is way cheaper to fix, you can probably find one on ebay for your model. Although with opening up the case, who knows what went bad at that point.

Next time you are curious, work on you sister's PC or something

enderbean, he did not just take the drive out of the PC, he opened it up.