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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
I have a pile of old drives from some P3's I have just retired, and am
going through them one by one to make sure there is no data on them I need before I reformat them and give them away or use them to back images etc. up to. I bought one of those inexpensive external drive bays that hook up via USB as its a lot easier than constantly replacing drives and rebooting, and it works quite well. I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. I've got the external drive bay taken apart so that the drive is just sitting on the table, so it is in plain view when I power it up. Can the disk be run with the cover off? I have some photo's that I can't find that may be on one of these disks, but there is nothing on them critical enough that I'd pay money to get them recovered, so I really have nothing to lose, and I am curious about taking them apart. Is there anything obvious to look for with the cover off the drive? thanks! |
#2
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
GS wrote:
I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. Don't go opening the drives up just yet. There were certain models of Maxtor drives that had a firmware corruption problem. The firmware would get corrupted and the system would no longer recognise the drive. There is a freeware tool that can fix certain models available here. http://www.salvationdata.com/hfr2.0_detail.htm Please read the user manual - you will need to jumper the drive to 'safe mode' otherwise the repair will not work. I would suggest that you should connect the drives directly to a PC and not via a USB enclosure as I'm not sure if the repair tool will work that way. I have used this on a 20gb Maxtor drive I had a while ago and it seemed to work ok. -- Tim Phipps replace "invalid" with "uk" to reply by email |
#3
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
Tim Phipps wrote:
GS wrote: I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. Don't go opening the drives up just yet. There were certain models of Maxtor drives that had a firmware corruption problem. The firmware would get corrupted and the system would no longer recognise the drive. There is a freeware tool that can fix certain models available here. http://www.salvationdata.com/hfr2.0_detail.htm Please read the user manual - you will need to jumper the drive to 'safe mode' otherwise the repair will not work. I would suggest that you should connect the drives directly to a PC and not via a USB enclosure as I'm not sure if the repair tool will work that way. I have used this on a 20gb Maxtor drive I had a while ago and it seemed to work ok. thanks! I'll give that a whirl first! would that explain the "clunking" though? |
#4
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
The tool from Salvationdata mentioned before will fix the 20 Gb
models. I've a 40 Gb Maxtor that failed the same way and still found no way to repair it. Tried everything I found in it. Opening the disk will result in dust stuck between the head and disk and there is nothing to repair there. GS wrote: I have a pile of old drives from some P3's I have just retired, and am going through them one by one to make sure there is no data on them I need before I reformat them and give them away or use them to back images etc. up to. I bought one of those inexpensive external drive bays that hook up via USB as its a lot easier than constantly replacing drives and rebooting, and it works quite well. I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. I've got the external drive bay taken apart so that the drive is just sitting on the table, so it is in plain view when I power it up. Can the disk be run with the cover off? I have some photo's that I can't find that may be on one of these disks, but there is nothing on them critical enough that I'd pay money to get them recovered, so I really have nothing to lose, and I am curious about taking them apart. Is there anything obvious to look for with the cover off the drive? thanks! |
#5
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
GS wrote:
I have a pile of old drives from some P3's I have just retired, and am going through them one by one to make sure there is no data on them I need before I reformat them and give them away or use them to back images etc. up to. I bought one of those inexpensive external drive bays that hook up via USB as its a lot easier than constantly replacing drives and rebooting, and it works quite well. I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. I've got the external drive bay taken apart so that the drive is just sitting on the table, so it is in plain view when I power it up. Can the disk be run with the cover off? I have some photo's that I can't find that may be on one of these disks, but there is nothing on them critical enough that I'd pay money to get them recovered, so I really have nothing to lose, and I am curious about taking them apart. Is there anything obvious to look for with the cover off the drive? thanks! There's nothing you can repair inside the sealed compartment, there's some cool magnets and bearings to salvage though. |
#6
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
GS wrote:
Tim Phipps wrote: GS wrote: I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. Don't go opening the drives up just yet. There were certain models of Maxtor drives that had a firmware corruption problem. The firmware would get corrupted and the system would no longer recognise the drive. There is a freeware tool that can fix certain models available here. http://www.salvationdata.com/hfr2.0_detail.htm Please read the user manual - you will need to jumper the drive to 'safe mode' otherwise the repair will not work. I would suggest that you should connect the drives directly to a PC and not via a USB enclosure as I'm not sure if the repair tool will work that way. I have used this on a 20gb Maxtor drive I had a while ago and it seemed to work ok. thanks! I'll give that a whirl first! would that explain the "clunking" though? Hard to say without hearing it myself. The drive I had made an unusual noise IIRC but not a loud clunking type of noise. -- Tim Phipps replace "invalid" with "uk" to reply by email |
#7
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
On 26 Mar, 15:08, GS wrote:
I have a pile of old drives from some P3's I have just retired, and am going through them one by one to make sure there is no data on them I need before I reformat them and give them away or use them to back images etc. up to. I bought one of those inexpensive external drive bays that hook up via USB as its a lot easier than constantly replacing drives and rebooting, and it works quite well. I have 2 Maxtor Drives, one 20GB and one 40GB - both of them make that dreaded "clunking" sound when powered up, but after that it does sound like they start to spin, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the laptop I am using to read them will not see these disks, not even in the disk management module. I was wondering if its possible that there could be something obvious I could see if I popped the cover off. I've got the external drive bay taken apart so that the drive is just sitting on the table, so it is in plain view when I power it up. Can the disk be run with the cover off? I have some photo's that I can't find that may be on one of these disks, but there is nothing on them critical enough that I'd pay money to get them recovered, so I really have nothing to lose, and I am curious about taking them apart. Is there anything obvious to look for with the cover off the drive? thanks! Youre having a problem with the controller, which is the uncovered pcb. The sealed up bit is the drive machanics, which a) arent the problem b) wont survive long once opened, as the average piece of house dust will cause a head crash. NT |
#9
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Repairing Maxtor hard drive - possible to DIY?
On Mar 27, 11:41 pm, Dr. Anton T. Squeegee
wrote: In article XtQNh.20950$x9.17119@edtnps89, (known to some as GS) scribed... I have a pile of old drives from some P3's I have just retired, and am going through them one by one to make sure there is no data on them I snippety You didn't say the drive size, but if they are 3.5" version, I suspect that your laptop USB port is not able to fully power the HD. USB port I believe can only provide 5V/500mA max, and your drives may need more. I think 3.5" drives need both 5VDC and 12 VDC. On the noise issue, I've taken apart a 2.5" drive that no longer worked, and with the cover opened, while applying 5VDC to the power pins I can see the head moved into position trying to read data repeatedly for about 20 times, then it goes to "park" position. The disk, which has lost most of its magnetic coating continue to spin. As mentioned, this drive is toast, since the disk itself no longer has a magnetic coating in 90% of the surfaces. |
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