www.deadharddrive.com

[KrazyKong]

6.5 years ago I did something stupid and plugged my drive into one of those hard drive caddies people used back then. Turns out it wasn't compatible with the one in my computer and I blew up the hard drive instantly

Ever since then on and off I've trying to get the hard drive working again without paying a kings ransom. Good ole ebay to save the day. Patience did pay off as I would check it weekly to see if my drive was there. Finally after finding it, winning the auction for $1.99 , it arrived in the mail. A few minutes later and it was up and running as I copied off the data as quickly as I could.

2.5 years ago another hard drive I had stopped working suddenly and made these very loud clunking noises. Concluding the pcb had died, I set about finding another one. I found my hard drive on ebay, though not the exact manufacture date and alas didn't have much success. But the noises were now different when I powered it up, so I knew then that it really was the pcb that had died. A second ebay purchase ended up having the same results. Finally some weeks back I found the exact version of my hard drive (same bios revision, pcb version and drive manufature date). It arrived today in the mail. It took only a few minutes to swap the pcb, and she fired up again

Very quickly I copied off the data with 100% success. No lost or corrupt data so I was very happy about that.


Any advice I can give folks who find their way here is to keep the faith, have the patience and you will find your drive soon enough on ebay. Sadly there are a few opportunists on these forums, that when they see someone desperate and needing a particular hard drive model, they then simultaneously list it on ebay, for I've seen personally up to $200. Now I know everyone has to make a living, but being taken advantage of when you're already stressed about losing potential data doesn't sit right with me. Thus take your time everyone, and keep checking ebay. There are good folks on here too, so don't get me wrong I'm not putting out a huge generalization. Many have had great success with members here. Others not so.

Find what works for you. If you're happy to pay the excessive amounts folks are asking, go for it. If you're on a budget and maybe the data is life threatening, then go the ebay route.