Hard Drive decided not to work

[mark1984]

Hi guys,

Hoping someone can give me some tips... one of my hard drive has just decided not to work, its 500gb Seagate SATA 32mb Cache, it been working fine for months (only about 9 month old) - i use it to store all my downloads on, nothing critical.

Is there a way to try and repair the disk enough to allow me to pull some of the files of of it?

It doesn't show up in COmputer Management or even in the BIOS, i've tried swapping cables around, etc.. but still nothing - although interestly in Command Prompt when i try to access E: it says 'The device is not ready'... I've tried the freezer trick (all night) but still it cannot be found...

I've just ordered a Samsung 1TB 32mb cache as its replacemnt but would like to recover at least some of my downloads before i send it back to Seagate to rplace under its warranty.

Thanks for any help

Mark

[Mickey]

I've tried the freezer trick (all night) but still it cannot be found...

what a Numbty. the ice crystals will have fucked up your drive. I wish people would listen to "common" sense. If someone said itll work on a spin cycle would you have done that.
"GetmyDataback" might have worked as ive used this in the past when my USB sata decides not to show up in the bios/ computer management and it copies all the data off the disk onto a new destination disk. It even renames the files to the original so you know what they are called

[mark1984]

"If someone said itll work on a spin cycle would you have done that." Oopps should i not have tried this as well then

I've heard of the freezer allowing the disk to be recognised again sometimes, the disk is kanckered anyway - i wrapped it in 2 sandwich bags so this should have limited the ice crystals, seeing as there would have been no moister on the disk aprt from possibly a samll amount of condensation...

Thamks for the idea about GetmyDataBack, I'll try and give that a go, but im not hopeful as the BIOS cant even see the drive...

Cheers

Mark

[danthescan]

Chances are you will never get anything from it now,after the freezer LOL.
take a cold beer out the fridge and watch the condensation on the bottle,same thing with a hard drive,but it is inside on the platters,so now its Fooked.
As its nine months old it shoul be under warranty,but if they open it up you will get nowt.
As soon as a cold object hit warm moist air, condensation will form.
Ive heard its better to take it to bed with you, and keep it warm all night as you cuddle it.

[Mr.James]

Freezer trick has worked a good number of times for me... I usually leave it in for about 4 or 5 hours and you'll get about half an hour to recover your stuff... (basically till the drive warms up)

If the freezer trick ain't done anything then it's proper dead... Does it even spin up at all?

[mark1984]

Yeah can hear it spinning up and it trying to read. If I plug it in it slow my boot up down while the bios is trying to read it... But then it boots without it.

maybe I'll have another go with swapping it with my
main boot drive... It's strange because when I turned the pc on yesterday it wouldn't boot, just returned 'b0 error', so it couldn't see any of my drives, I pulled the cables out and tried them one by one and managed to boot it... I haven't changed anything on the pc in the last 8 months since I rebuilt it...

Cheers

[Mr.James]

I'm guessing it's a SATA drive? SATA Drives are hot swapable... Boot up your PC without the drive attached. Once you're in Windows run GetDataBack, note the Physical drives that it can see and close it down again. Now connect the drive and leave it for half an hour.

Fire up get GetDataBack again and see if a new Physical drive has appeared...

[raelmadrid]

freezer trick worked for my 1.5tb drive thats still working to this day, ice crystals - pah!

[mark1984]

I'm guessing it's a SATA drive? SATA Drives are hot swapable... Boot up your PC without the drive attached. Once you're in Windows run GetDataBack, note the Physical drives that it can see and close it down again. Now connect the drive and leave it for half an hour.

Fire up get GetDataBack again and see if a new Physical drive has appeared...

Yeah it is a SATA, i'll get GetDataBack and try using an external cable... failing that i may have to try freezing it for longer... I dont think i can send it back to Seagate now cause of its got all my downloads, e.g. games, movies and software - apparently they are quite hot on it and will report it...

freezer trick worked for my 1.5tb drive thats still working to this day, ice crystals - pah!

How long did you freeze it for? I'm thinking i may give it another go as it appears that the head is stuck, yet the platters are spinning...

[Mr.James]

Yeah it is a SATA, i'll get GetDataBack and try using an external cable... failing that i may have to try freezing it for longer... I dont think i can send it back to Seagate now cause of its got all my downloads, e.g. games, movies and software - apparently they are quite hot on it and will report it...



How long did you freeze it for? I'm thinking i may give it another go as it appears that the head is stuck, yet the platters are spinning...

No need to stick it on an external, SATA drives are hot swapable so you can unplug and replug as much as you like with windows running... Plug it in an external and you're adding extra things into the mix which may prevent it from working... e.g. Caddy can't access the device so neither can windows...

I usually give it about 4-5 hours... Then get it in straight away coz after it's warmed up it will most likely return to it's faulted state... Stick it in an air tight container and stick some silica gel in there if you have any...

[raelmadrid]

How long did you freeze it for? I'm thinking i may give it another go as it appears that the head is stuck, yet the platters are spinning...

wrap it in a plastic bag and seal it with tape to prevent condensation, then put it on fast freeze for about 3 hours

plug straight in and it should spin up

i was gonna send mine back to ebuyer but its been fine for months

[mark1984]

Right its back in the freezer, i gave it a bit of a test after an hour in there and it didn't find it, it spins up and clicks as if the heads are moving then makes a sounds similar to a laser trying to focus, then it just spins but cannot be found...

I'll give it another go later this evening/tomorrow morning - is there anything else i should be doing in windows or should it just pop up in My Computer view once its found?

If it still doesn't work is there another way to try and get the heads moving again? I'm not to bothered if i break it even more, just want to try and wipe it now so i can send it back...

I'm still pretty shocked that it was working perfect and for no reason it wouldn't work - strange...

[Russ]

I've just had to do this last night to a friends hard drive. I put it in the freezer @ 5:00pm last night in 2 carrier bags - got it out this morning & put it in a USB caddy. Took a few mins but eventually recognised the drive & I managed to save at least 50% of the documents & photos. Had to give it a sharp bang occasionally when it stopped spinning.