Legit Reviews

My 1TB Samsung HDD just seems to be dead. It won't register at all, despite that there was no sign of failure previously. I checked not long time ago and it showed to be 100%, than it wasn't used for a month and now it just seems to be dead. To me it would mean it's not the plates, because they aren't just breaking all of a sudden. Is there a way to repair or extract the contents? It had all our home videos of the kids and family from the past 8 years - I would hate to loose it all

Hook it up externally or vice versa if you had it hooked external. Sometimes this will kick it loose for some reason (computers are so strange).

There are numerous programs out there for data recovery - http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecov ... ograms.htm - I always liked the pay program Active@ but everything is personal preference. As long as the drive has power most recovery programs should be able to recover but some will require an entire partition recovery which would mean you have to either have another 1TB drive or preferably a bigger drive to store the recovered partition. You can not recover to the same drive as that would overwrite areas to yet be recovered ;)

Thanks but it seems there is no sound coming from the HDD. No spinning up or any movement. Thaty is why I thought it must be electrical, phisical problem and software related.

Fun project - find another of the exact same model drive and swap the pc boards. If you cant get any power to the drive I really dont know of anything else to do unless you know electronics REALLY well. You could test the board using a multimeter to see where the power input stops and then de-solder the bad part and put a new one on but that is above my pay grade

Is it possible to buy the same board and exchange it?

sbohdan wrote:Is it possible to buy the same board and exchange it?

Depending on the HDD you should be able to swap out the PCB and as long as the internal motor isn't bad that could do the trick! Hopefully it does!

Just note that buying the board might be more than a drive...

For exampled...

If you need a Samsung 1TB HD103UJ PCB...

Ebay has the PCB for $54 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD103UJ-BF41-00 ... 1197028605

You can get w working used drive for under $20

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAMSUNG-Spinpoi ... 1618745338

You might be better off with the whole drive as you can try swapping other parts if needed.

Thanks for the advice! Will try that and report back of the outcome. Fingers crossed....

sbohdan wrote:Thanks for the advice! Will try that and report back of the outcome. Fingers crossed....

I love mad scientist mode!!!!!!!

KnightRid wrote:

sbohdan wrote:Thanks for the advice! Will try that and report back of the outcome. Fingers crossed....

I love mad scientist mode!!!!!!!

HeHe.

I just bought a same HDD with 100% performance and 0% condition for $4 + $3 shipping
The drive registers nice, so the panel is good for sure and I guess everything else too but the discs inside. I just saw a video how to exchange discs (in case I need too). Will post.

sbohdan wrote:

KnightRid wrote:

sbohdan wrote:Thanks for the advice! Will try that and report back of the outcome. Fingers crossed....

I love mad scientist mode!!!!!!!

HeHe.

I just bought a same HDD with 100% performance and 0% condition for $4 + $3 shipping
The drive registers nice, so the panel is good for sure and I guess everything else too but the discs inside. I just saw a video how to exchange discs (in case I need too). Will post.

I can just see you wiping your hands around each other cackling like a school girl as you pull out the screwdriver yea, I am jealous!

Well I wish it was just a game but unfortunatelly there is some very important stuff that I need to save, so I will not be so cheerful just yet

sbohdan wrote:Well I wish it was just a game but unfortunatelly there is some very important stuff that I need to save, so I will not be so cheerful just yet

*Clears throat on soapbox* If it is that important it should have been backed up *unclears throat and falls off soapbox*

HAH - sorry had to say it as I tell people that all the time when they lose things on their hard drives. I just started backing up 2 of the 6 hard drives in my system weekly so I do not have much room to talk. Now if my backups get corrupted when the drive dies, well, that would just make me mad enough to live in a cave and draw on rocks.