Alan Peterman wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:47:02 -0500, "Stellijer"

wrote:

Anyone know of any great web sites or discussions boards for reviving hard
drives which have failed fir data retreival?

Let me mention just ONE of the cases here, just in case in addition to
information, someone here has some adivce:

The first drive is a 40GB Western Digital, 2-1/2 years old. It's been used a
lot in the past couple years. Last weekend it quit spinning up.

I had another brand of drive freeze up on a client last year. It turned out
that these drives were notorious for "stiction" problems where the platters
would not be able to be spun up by the motor. Opening the platter enclosure
and
manually spinning the platters freed it up so I could run it and retrieve the
data. While a "clean room" is desire able, if you've got a reasonably dust
free
environment it's worth a try.


Did your drive "jerk" a little? It seems like the platters CAN spin, at least a
little bit. They're certainly not stuck SOLID.

I'm only being cautious becuase I know that opening the case invites, as you
elude to, contamination from dust, no matter how clean the room normally seems.

What kind of tool is used to open a drive, anyway? It looks like a Torx wrench
but it's not of a size I've seen available before. A #10 was a little too large
and the screws on top of the drive seem even a little smaller. I wish to know
in case I do end up having to open the drive.

P.S. As for a 'clean room' - I would probably try scrubbing my bathroom down as
there's no carpet in there... then put the air filter in there for a day to
hopefully remove any amibient particles. Probably any dust in the room would
come in the door with me when I enter...