Hi guys. Long time lurker. I have a question where I have no idea where to start looking for the answer.
I've been collecting dead hard drives over the past, lets say, 5-6 years. They "broke" in various ways. A couple were dropped while on (external hard drives), some died from electrical problems (more on that later), and some just mysteriously started making noises and giving me all sorts of problems (crashing, data corruption, etc).
There is a ton of data on these drives which I don't consider essential but precious enough for me to not throw the drive away immediately. Over the years, I threw away some I considered hopeless and kept others. I have recently decided to look into salvaging the data off two of my "dead" drives.
Now I know this is probably (scratch that, almost definitely) a fools quest. The value of this data isn't enough to justify the money required in sending the drives off to some data recovery company. After doing some research, I learned that it is possible, in some cases, to fix the drives (if only temporarily) with minimal cost. I read about everything from freezing your hard drives, to physically spinning the hard drive itself, to replacing the PCB on the hard drive.
Setup-
Test computer. Remains of an old HP desktop from way back when (still runs on a Intel Celeron processor, hah). Everything still works fine. Took out its hard drive a long time ago and the remains have been sitting in my garage ever since. I'm basically using this setup just to provide power to my target hard drives. I don't care about booting or detecting in BIOS. Just seeing if the drives will even start correctly and remain spinning.
*Note: All these drives don't detect or break my regular desktop if I try plugging them in. Hence the testing rig.
Drive 1:
Don't remember how it died. I just know its dead. It possibly came from an external hard drive when it fell off my desk.
When I put it in the "test setup", it goes through its normal power up spin then spins down and turns off. No clicks or irregular noises. Just hums quietly on, stays on for about 1-2 seconds, and then hums off to dead silent.
Drive 2:
Died from an electrical issue of some sort. Had it connected to one of those cheap-o quick IDE/SATA to USB converter kits. Used the kit for about 3 months on and off to quickly grab data off hard drives I had (too lazy to shut down my computer and plug it in normally). Then one day I smelled burning from the power adapter. Computer then decided to crash. Hard drive never worked after that day. Fried the USB header on the front of my case as well.
When I put it in the "test setup", it kills the computer. I fear this hard drive. I press the power button, the computer clicks for about 1/2 a second and dies. Subsequent power button presses do nothing. I have to disconnect the power cable, switch off the power supply, and reset the CMOS/BIOS either through jumpers or taking out the round battery.
Question:
From the symptoms I've provided, does anybody know ANYTHING I can do? Or are these drives deader than dead? If it's relevant, I don't have a multimeter so I can't check anything myself.
Again, I know its most likely possible that these drives are dead. I figured it is worth the shot to ask around if these drives are "salvageable" before throwing them away.
I've been collecting dead hard drives over the past, lets say, 5-6 years. They "broke" in various ways. A couple were dropped while on (external hard drives), some died from electrical problems (more on that later), and some just mysteriously started making noises and giving me all sorts of problems (crashing, data corruption, etc).
There is a ton of data on these drives which I don't consider essential but precious enough for me to not throw the drive away immediately. Over the years, I threw away some I considered hopeless and kept others. I have recently decided to look into salvaging the data off two of my "dead" drives.
Now I know this is probably (scratch that, almost definitely) a fools quest. The value of this data isn't enough to justify the money required in sending the drives off to some data recovery company. After doing some research, I learned that it is possible, in some cases, to fix the drives (if only temporarily) with minimal cost. I read about everything from freezing your hard drives, to physically spinning the hard drive itself, to replacing the PCB on the hard drive.
Setup-
Test computer. Remains of an old HP desktop from way back when (still runs on a Intel Celeron processor, hah). Everything still works fine. Took out its hard drive a long time ago and the remains have been sitting in my garage ever since. I'm basically using this setup just to provide power to my target hard drives. I don't care about booting or detecting in BIOS. Just seeing if the drives will even start correctly and remain spinning.
*Note: All these drives don't detect or break my regular desktop if I try plugging them in. Hence the testing rig.
Drive 1:
Don't remember how it died. I just know its dead. It possibly came from an external hard drive when it fell off my desk.
When I put it in the "test setup", it goes through its normal power up spin then spins down and turns off. No clicks or irregular noises. Just hums quietly on, stays on for about 1-2 seconds, and then hums off to dead silent.
Drive 2:
Died from an electrical issue of some sort. Had it connected to one of those cheap-o quick IDE/SATA to USB converter kits. Used the kit for about 3 months on and off to quickly grab data off hard drives I had (too lazy to shut down my computer and plug it in normally). Then one day I smelled burning from the power adapter. Computer then decided to crash. Hard drive never worked after that day. Fried the USB header on the front of my case as well.
When I put it in the "test setup", it kills the computer. I fear this hard drive. I press the power button, the computer clicks for about 1/2 a second and dies. Subsequent power button presses do nothing. I have to disconnect the power cable, switch off the power supply, and reset the CMOS/BIOS either through jumpers or taking out the round battery.
Question:
From the symptoms I've provided, does anybody know ANYTHING I can do? Or are these drives deader than dead? If it's relevant, I don't have a multimeter so I can't check anything myself.
Again, I know its most likely possible that these drives are dead. I figured it is worth the shot to ask around if these drives are "salvageable" before throwing them away.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram