laptop harddrive not spinning up

nfixit

Hello to all, I new here I hope you guys can give me some advice



Iam embarrassed to say, I recently had one of my important HardDrives die on me with out a good back up. NO BACKUPS and information that I can not afford to loose

Iam looking for advice on where to go to get the proper help without emptying my pockets, I know how data recovery can carry a heavy tag

its from a dell laptop harddrive( 60 hitachi travelstar).
The drive do not spin up, also bios or windows setup will not recognise the harddrive.
I have also tried to view the drive using an 2.5 to 3.5 converter adapter on a desktop with no avail

Please help, I have to do something soon

Thanks in advance

Esso

Hi,
The only thing I can think of if the disc motor doesn't spin up,
is because of the platters inside the disc and heads, have made contact.
Or the controller card has failed..

Make sure that IDE to 2.5" converter was connected correctly (just to make sure).

So the option is like this,

• Find the exact same HDD model and switch the controller card.
  Try to find one SM member that has the same disk, that has failed.
  
  
• Try the brutal way, give at shock on the side with an screwdriver, and see if it spins up.
  
  
• Open the case lid, and see whats wrong, maybe you can manually move the platters.
  The best place to this is in the shower room, after letting the shower clean the air from dust, running 5-6 minutes.
  This will also reduce the ESD.
  Check the that the the head is not stuck, gently do not move the head.
  Just move the platter without touching the surface.
  
  It is tuff and brutal, but what to do at this stage.
  
  
• The last option is to send it to some repair center that restores data.
  But it will cost alot of money.

Many years ago in the late 80's, Seagate made an hard disk that after being running for some time.
The surface protection film started to move against the outside of the disc.
And when the head went into the parking position, the head made full contact with the disc, and got stuck.
I'm not saying that is your case, but you never know.

I have noticed that the portable computers hard disk usally runs hot.
No ventilation in the top, makes it warmer after some time.

And yes, it happends to us all, not making backups and the data is lost ...
The pro is too proud, admitting making misstakes, that all.

I managed to get hold of 5 R-Driver USB 2.0 to IDE cable converter.
The good thing with it that is supports both 2.5" and 3.5" hard disks.


Edit
I have tested the R-driver 2, USB 2.0 to IDE cable.
Out of 5 units 2 didn't work, so I open the HDD interface, and made an close up inspection.

I didn't look so good because there were soldering materials on the board and the quality wasn't so good.
It seemes they have hand soldered the card.

Later I manged to fix them both, everything is 1/3 of the size it used to be.
Eyesight and age doesn't mix either.

The unit does not support multi partitions on the hard disk.
I could only see the first logial partition.

Summary,
Cant handle more then one hard disk partition.
Bad soldering quality.
Not recommended.

However others has an different view,
http://www.dansdata.com/rdriver.htm

profdlp

The only thing I'd add to Esso's advice is that another thing you could try would be to seal the drive in an anti-static bag and leave it in the freezer overnight. Sometimes that will free up stuck parts.

You should also have everything already setup to transfer your data over to a good drive should you be able to get the troublesome one going. You don't want to see it suddenly spin up, then croak again while you're frantically trying to get the other stuff ready.

Good luck.