Possible to fix a harddrive yourself?

dgood · Post by **dgood** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:42 pm

So I've bene sitting here staring at a 250gb sata drive. A Western Digital Caviar SE. It spins or something I can feel it when the computer starts up, but it won't register in the bios, or continue to spin. I've tired both legacy and sata power connectors to it. I've tried multiple ports. now I want to see if there is anything else I can do to it. tapping it while it's plugged in does nothing either. Just curious as this is a nice hd and I hate to see it not working.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:13 am

I wouldn't have thought so, unless you have a clean room and replacement parts handy. >_<

Is it not still covered by its warranty? They usually are for several years.

Dan

DaIceMan · Post by **DaIceMan** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:46 am

I have a clients' machine, hard drive failed taking all the information along with it. I was talking to a buddy and he said that to get it to spin, if only for a few minutes, to plug it in (power and data), hit the power button and smack the side of it VERY hard. He said that sometimes the platters or needle (probably the wrong term, too early to think) would stick and it took a great deal of G Force to start them moving again.

I've also heard that freezing the drive for a few hours will sometimes allow it to work for just a little bit and let you get data off of it.

As for a hard drive that just stopped working, even if I could get it working again, I would be leary of using it for anything important due to increased failure risk. Follow up on the warranty issue (you should be able to check status of the warranty online). If you don't have a warranty, I'd said time to head it to the dumpster.

Dragon_Cooler · Post by **Dragon_Cooler** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:04 am

yeah i was going to say.. "try the freezer yet?"

Darkstar · Post by **Darkstar** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:31 am

I second the warranty question, depending on which version of the drive you have, it might still be covered.

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp#policy

otherwise it has some cool magnets in it

Tech_Greek · Post by **Tech_Greek** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:46 am

If it's not recognizing in BIOS then you need to find a HD with the exact same model number and swap the logic board over on the bottom of the HD because that's usually the case.

If it were just sitting there clicking, usually a bad arm, just replace it with again, same model.

As far as dust proof room, meh, I just hold my breathe so I don't blow on the platter and have yet to have a problem in three years.

tekgek · Post by **tekgek** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:52 am

I've had the same problem with my older hard drive. You cannot fix hard drives without a clean room environment, meaning that there is almost no dust in the air, because a dust particle can lodge between the hard disk platter and the head, causing the drive to scratched, and therefore ruined. The problem you are facing is the sign of an ailing or bad drive in my experience. I suggest that you get a new drive. They are now pretty cheap.

skier · Post by **skier** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:24 pm

this might be a little simple, but if you havn't used it for while, you should check the jumpers, if you have more than one drive set as master, it will only see one(i had that problem with two optical drives)

Solinari · Post by **Solinari** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:56 pm

Tech_Greek · Post by **Tech_Greek** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:58 pm

tekgek wrote:I've had the same problem with my older hard drive. You cannot fix hard drives without a clean room environment, meaning that there is almost no dust in the air, because a dust particle can lodge between the hard disk platter and the head, causing the drive to scratched, and therefore ruined. The problem you are facing is the sign of an ailing or bad drive in my experience. I suggest that you get a new
drive. They are now pretty cheap.

Trying to steal my name huh?

as far as the dust proof room, if you're THAT concerned, go into the shower and turn on the shower and steam the room, turn the shower off and go into there after you can see and there you go! dust is suspended almost because of the moisture.

tekgek · Post by **tekgek** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:11 pm

I junked the old drive, but thanks, I'll keep that that in mind.

and no, I'm not trying to steal your name. I use for all my online stuff. I thought of it a couple of years ago.

Tech_Greek · Post by **Tech_Greek** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:38 am

tekgek wrote:I junked the old drive, but thanks, I'll keep that that in mind. and no, I'm not trying to steal your name. I use for all my online stuff. I thought of it a couple of years ago.

Hah, what are the chances of someone thinking the same thing at the same time?

jtrain · Post by **jtrain** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:11 am

Try this:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/index.asp

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