www.deadharddrive.com

[jfploeg]

Hi everyone:

My post of June 4, 2007, in the Hard Drives Wanted Forum (Subject: Need Seagate ST34006204), was the start of my quest for recovering my data. Unfortunately Eric’s tips and suggestions did not pan out. Further attempts to find an exact match for my HD’s Logic Board proved to be futile.

Before giving up on my precious 27 GB of data, I decided to try the so-called “Myths” by some Web sites.

A local PC Tech told me about his successful experience in getting the HD to run after dropping it on the hard floor, on its flat top side (Logic Board side looking up – away from the floor). He had no first hand experience with the “Deep-Freezing” of the HD.

Before resorting to the “Drop” approach, I thought the “Deep-Freeze” approach was preferable, thinking about the warranty replacement, after recovering the data.

Well, it worked! However, there are some interesting details. After freezing the HD for 24 hours, and hooking it up to the PC trough the USB port, nothing happened. It was still “Dead as a Doornail.” Since I was using a Granite Digital USB to SATA/IDE Cable System with its power supply, I could easily cycle the power on the HD. After some 30 minutes of thawing, and cycling the power, the HD started to spin for a moment. To slow down the thawing I covered the HD with a towel, and some 15 minutes later, tried the power cycling again. Like magic, the HD started spinning, and I was able to recover all my data.

I will never know for sure what is wrong with the HD. However, I suspect it is mechanical. It was somewhat noisy while running during the data recovery process, and also the Granite IDE connector’s blinking light and noise while attempting to start the HD suggests to me that the Logic Board is OK. But, I may be wrong.

The irony about this experience, is that the failed HD was supposed to be my Backup/Archive, and it failed after I transferred some of my data to it. I felt everything was OK, and proceeded to erase the data from the source drive. Well, as the saying goes: Bad Things Happen.

I thank everyone for their Posts and valuable tips. Especially NEV for making this resource possible.

Johan