www.deadharddrive.com

[pmdci]

Here is my story... Click here for my HD request (please!)

I had it installed in an old Athlon PC and the disk started to power off all of a sudden. I thought it was the motherboard (some voltage problems) because it is also quite old (the entire PC was old, but the HD was the newest bit I had).

So I ordered a IDE/SATA USB adapter to move the data to a new HD. The drive powered on, and I started to copy some data (yaaay!) Well, guess what? It worked for about 15 minutes, then it spin down again! It wasn't a problem of the desktop's motherboard after all.

I left the drive "cool off" for a while and I tried again. I found that if I gently make contact with the power connector it would power on, but if I tried to push it in a little bit more, it would "loose power contact". I managed to copy some more data (i.e.: outlook PST) by holding the power connector gently (just enough to get the power up and the disk spinning) -- but it was a difficult task and once again it lost power, and it seems that this time it is gone forever.

I thought this could be the case of a flimsy power connector (i.e.: bad soldering), but I must say that the soldering looks quite solid!

So I think that at the moment this must be a logic board problem. If I replace the board, perhaps I will be able to power the disk on to just copy my data back.

With my very limited knowledge of electronics, I think (please correct me if I am wrong) that the mechanic bits of this drive (motor, plates needle, but most likely the motor) is for some reason "overheating" (i.e.: sucking too much power due to some manufacturing probs). Perhaps this is why the drive tended to make that scratch-click, scratch click form time to time... But anyhow... I think that such problem might have "slowly killed" the logic board.

Any ideas? Thanks for reading my grief... Click here for my HD request (please!)

Cheers,
P.