Hard drive failed - compatible one?

Little_John

Once you decide on a size of drive you then need to decide on a make.
Maxtor tend to be noisy and not as reliable as others. ( I have 2x40GB a 160GB IDE and a 74GB Scsi)
Western Digital very good drives, fast and quiet (I have 4x250GB)
IBM/Hitachi are ok but reliability is a problem (I have 2x36GB dead scsi and 2x120GB IDE)
Seagate have been making drives for years and I havnt heard of any bad batches or problematic drives
Fujitsu they had a major problem with 10GB drives I replaced about 80 of them myself for customers they may make the best drives ever but mud sticks so I will stay well clear now.
Samsung I have replaced quite a few 20 and 40GB drives but nother big has ever been a problem can be noisy though (I have a 40GB)

Price wise if you get a 250GB - 320GB they are pretty cheap now, if you go over 3200GB you will pay a premium usually double and only get a small amount of extra space.

The 36GB IBM drives failed almost at the same time I lost alot of stuff and set it away for data recovery, I was charged about £280 and got !!!!!! all from it except a drive that had been opened.

Your best chances of getting the stuff of the drive are to only use the pc once you have the new drive in place and the operating sytem on it and ready to copy the stuff over, then try to get the drive to be reconised by the bios first then within windows. once this is working try easy recovery pro I have had some sucess with it in the past on failed drives. There are loads of ways documented on the web to get drives working, from hitting them to sticking them in a sealed bag and in the freezer for 30 minutes. hitting drives has worked but only as a last resort.

Binxy

Mark_LJ wrote:

Make sure its broken first! Just because it doesn't work it doesn't mean its broken.

When you say that the 'computer' can't see it are we saying its not identified in the bios?

If its still seen in the bios have you tried booting from the OS CD (assuming you're running XP) and trying to repair the install of windows.

Have you tried using a different cable such as the one from your optical drive. Sometimes the cables can become kinked, due to the heat inside the case and will stop working without any warning.

When you start up the PC can you feel the drive spinning?

A very good point. Hubby isn't home till gone 10pm, but I will most defintely show him this thread, and see if we can make absolutely sure it is indeed broken.

Thanks to everyone for your help, I really do appreciate each and every post. :beer:

Mark_LJ

Little_John wrote:

There are loads of ways documented on the web to get drives working, from hitting them to sticking them in a sealed bag and in the freezer for 30 minutes. hitting drives has worked but only as a last resort.

The freezer has worked for me a couple of times - or at least for long enough for me to get an image of it.

Binxy

Mark_LJ wrote:

The freezer has worked for me a couple of times - or at least for long enough for me to get an image of it.

:eek:

Really?!? It may be bad enough that I've already touched it, actually :rolleyes: I have a bit of a problem with static electricity. I'm not allowed anywhere near the inside of the pooter usually, because I'm lethal

Mark_LJ

The hard drive is made up of a number of platters that are all seperated by the tiniest of tiny gaps. Sometimes, when a drive fails, its due to the platters moving slightly and 'sticking' together. By putting them in the freezer the metal platters contract ever so slightly and they come apart again.

albertross_2

You might want to read this on a similar topic..

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=148842&highlight=fridge+disk+spinning

Little_John

Mark_LJ wrote:

The hard drive is made up of a number of platters that are all seperated by the tiniest of tiny gaps. Sometimes, when a drive fails, its due to the platters moving slightly and 'sticking' together. By putting them in the freezer the metal platters contract ever so slightly and they come apart again.

FYI
The gaps between platers are about 3mm the heads that read the disk are the bits that are close and cause the sticking.

I like pulling them apart to destroy the data on the disks