Re: Hard drive repair (longish)

From: philo (_at_privacy.net)
Date: 03/26/05 

Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:15:18 -0600

PlainBill wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 06:07:48 -0600, "philo " <"philo
> "@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>
>>PlainBill wrote:
>>
>>>Well, I really blew it this time. About a month ago I replaced my 120
>>>gig hard drive with a new 200 Gig Maxtor, model # 6B200P. In
>>>violation of my common sense, I did NOT keep the old drive as a
>>>backup. Well, the new drive went belly up last week - it wouldn't
>>>even spin up. Some of the stuff on the drive is easily replaceable,
>>>but many of the pictures of my Granddaughter cannot be replaced.
>>>
>>>I requested an advance replacement from Maxtor, and when it arrived I
>>>tried to repair the bad drive by swapping the electronics boards. I
>>>verified these had identical part numbers. This had a limited sucess:
>>>The new hda does not spin up with the old electronics board; the old
>>>hda DOES spin up with the new board. However, the drive does not
>>>properly report it's size. The new drive reports it is 203.9 Gig; the
>>>new electronics board with the old hda reports it's size as 250 Gig,
>>>then generates POST errors.
>>>
>>>At this point I can restore the electronics boards to the proper hdas
>>>and return the old drive to satisfy the terms of the advance
>>>replacement, since I have not altered anything. The last option I am
>>>considering is a part which appears to be a SST Serial flash chip. It
>>>should be possible to swap these between boards if I unsolder with
>>>chip-quik, but I'm not looking forward to it.
>>>
>>>Does anyone have any experience with these drives, or any advice to
>>>give?
>>>
>>>PlainBill
>>
>>
>>try slaving the drive to a a machine with an existing XP or NT-based OS
>>and see if you can read the data
>
> I could give it a try before trying anything potentially destructive,
> but I'm not optomistic. The new drive (and the old hda with the new
> electronics board) spins up as soon as power is applied. The old
> drive, (and the new hda with the old electronics board) won't spin up
> under any circumstances.
>
> PlainBill

but you originally said that the old drive
with the new board on it DOES spin up...
if that is so...then even if seen incorrectly in the bios...
if you slave it to an existing OS...the data should still be readable