No Spin-Up

sechs · Apr 17, 2004

One of my ATA drives very suddenly does not spin-up or apparently power-up at all. Beyond poking it with a stick, repeatedly plugging a molex connector into it, and exhorting it to work, is there anything that I might do to revive it, if only long enough to get the data off of it?

ddrueding · Apr 17, 2004

Freezer trick has helped me in similar situations...

sechs · Apr 17, 2004

I guess I'll need to find a large ziplock....

sechs · Apr 18, 2004

Nada. The drive doesn't even get ID'd by the controller.

It's as if it isn't getting any power at all.

Pradeep · Apr 18, 2004

Perhaps the solder connectors where the molex connects to the hard drive controller have seperated?

sechs · Apr 18, 2004

They look fine; can't pull them up or anything. Checked over the entire PCB; looks to be exactly the same as the day I got the drive.

mangyDOG · Apr 19, 2004

What brand of hard-drive is it?

cheers,
mangyDOG

sechs · Apr 19, 2004

It's a Hitachi 180GXP. Worked perfectly until failure.

Will Rickards WT · Apr 19, 2004

Sounds like it was subjected to some sort of power surge. I don't know what you can do in these cases, short of swapping boards. Maybe contact IBM support and see if there is anything you can do?

sechs · Apr 20, 2004

You mean Hitachi.

It's not quite worth that much effort. It's data I'd like to have, but can live without. Like the original PDFs of my taxes... I have paper copies, but those would be better.

I guess I'll be exercising the remaining three months of its warranty....