[RESOLVED] How to FRY a Hard Drive.. Take Heed..

[jtmurphy]

Duh, One each 2.5GB Hard Drive headed to the dump. Everything backed up but; Bookmarks (about 150 of them suckers), all email and addresses (including wifes - think she's leaving), 30MB download to update Ofice 97, Outlook etc....

How do you do it...it's no secret, just use a screw to mount your Hard Drive that is a Tinzi - Winzi - a litle bit toooo long...ZZham power her up and that little bitty screw touching the circuit board - puff smoke and goodby drive....

Lesson learned, watch those little bitty screws that you use to mount your drives, they are evil and looking to destroy you........


Murf

[Igor M]

Hi Murf,

There is more simple way to do that. Just drop it on the floor from about 3 feet, as I did not so long. But to be sure you need to put something hard on the floor beforehand (water pipe as it was in my case, or another HDD for more effect).

Igor

[VictorD]

Murf
Had friends husband plug IDE cabel in upside down - did not pass smoke test - I hard wired a jumper to by pass the very small fuse's on the board and was able to down load ever thing to another hard drive - this saved the marrage. Hope this works.

[jtmurphy]

Sure glad I'm not the only idiot out there, Hum, may try the pipe to swat this thing down the street.

Jumper the fuse, what the heck does it look like??? Sounds like a good idea, just need to get power to it so I can get important stuff off of it.

I see a litle post sticking up thru the circuit board, maybe a reset like a circuit breaker???

Any Mechnical Hard Drive Experts out there??

Looking for a place that maybe can repair, sure would like some of the data off of it.


Murf

[chappy]

There is one possible glimmer (though probably faint) of hope. Find another IDENTICAL drive and swap the controller boards (the pc board mounted to the bottom of the drive.)

[VictorD]

Murf
The fuse I by passed was about 3/32 X 1/16
metalic (silver) on both ends white plastic (?)in center. The way I did it was using a small length of wire ( "U" shaped )and twizers, hooked the drive to a power supply (not a computer but I guess that would work) up side down so I could work on it and shorted around each thing I though was a fuse,(as far as I know there can be TWO fuses)when the drive starts up you found it.
good luck. Switching the boards works but the TWO HARD DRIVES HAVE TO BE THE SAME.

[Igor M]

Murf,

I think this idea about boards switching is a good one. Sorry not to suggest it myself. In my experience HDD dropping is more frequent then frying. So there is much more dead HDDs with crushed heads and magnetic layers but with healthy controller board. If you find someone who repair HDDs he for sure must have spare controller.

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Good luck, Igor M

[Mole]

I used to switch the controller board on the HD too. I had a Quantum Fireball which I managed to crush some chips on the controller. Luckily, I had another identical HD, so I had to swap back and fort untill I got a chance to get a replacement. But it worked allright though.

[jtmurphy]

I can't believe it. Some IDIOT, will not mention company for fear of being sued, quoted me $390 to repair the drive and thats without any data recovery. Boy I'm in the wrong business.

Will try jumper if I can figure out which doohicky is the fuse...

One good thing came out of this, bought a 4.3GB drive for less then I paid for the 2.5GB last year. Oh well

Micropolis is no more they merged with someone, have 6 hard drives, but none match, thanks Mole I have two quantum's will try swapping controller board to get one of them working.

Hey, they make good paper weights.

Murf

[Magus]

I've got another use...I made a clock out of an old Maxtor.