Hard Drive Failure *Cries* - Engineers to the rescue?

[()blivion]

HA HA "eBay it", that's funny, the exact same thought crossed my mind for a split second. Terrible terrible people we are.

Anyway, great job Megamox. Looking at the last pictures I see now that the EEPROM is the type with the center grounding pad and not 8-SOIC. Given that, yeah, it would have been quite hard to do with a just pencil iron. Good to see that the air iron worked really well.

As for what do with the drive, there are HDD clock projects out there that are fairly neat. Seems like the most interesting use for a junk one anyway. Otherwise, what I usually do is just take the motor and rare earth magnets out of them and scrap the rest. High grade aluminium extrusion gets you top dollar usually.

-()blivion

 

[Megamox]

Great ideas Yes the centre pad was quite surprising actually, I'm lucky as I heated the chip uniformly it didn't cause an issue. I did preheat the board by waving the air gun about 10cm above the chip area for about 20-30 seconds first.

One moment of panic did happen though when I came to resolder the IC, I didn't remember which way around to put it back! I actually had to go back and look at the original picture I had taken of the board earlier in the thread. I see now the chips are oriented so that by turning your head to the right, you can read the writing on the top of them. Some gremlins you really can't plan for

Megamox

EDIT: Final result, 291GB recovered with 8GB of CRC errors Perhaps some platter damage there, who knows!

 

[alec_t]

Great success story. And nicely documented along the way. Glad you got your important data back.

 

[cowboybob]

Megamox,

I must say, I am utterly impressed.

CBB

 

[picbits]

Megamox,

I must say, I am utterly impressed.

CBB

Indeed - full marks for not just giving up and rolling over.

I'd personally agree with the above comment about making it into a HDD clock and everytime it tells you the time you can remember how you managed to get one over the Seagate drive ......

 

[Megamox]

Thanks guys, much appreciated The HDD Clock Idea would be a nice touch to finish off this saga! In all seriousness though, I have to chalk this one up as a victory for the Electro-Tech Forum and its Engineers, I seriously doubt the repair would have come this far without the support of everyone here. Give yourselves a clap!

Unfortunately the girlfriend has been asking if I've seen the latex gloves that came with her hair dye kit or why the chopping board has developed what looks like to be a scorch mark in the middle of it. Might be time to go into witness protection

Regards,
Megamox

 

[picbits]

Many women just don't seem to realise just how important sacrificing their gloves / chopping boards etc are in the name of science

 

[Megamox]

Exactly! Hello!..Trying to be awesome here, who has time to remember whose belongings I'm salvaging parts from! (Okay it's normally her stuff, as I've pretty much destroyed all of mine already ). I'll just blame it on the dog like I always do. To her credit though, she usually sees through this. Probably because we don't own one

Regards,
Megamox

 

[()blivion]

...I have to chalk this one up as a victory for the Electro-Tech Forum and its Engineers, I seriously doubt the repair would have come this far without the support of everyone here. Give yourselves a clap!

You know Megamox, as it turns out, there just so happens to be a handy little way to give people that have helped you out the pat on the back they deserve. It's in the bottom right corner of their post.

 

[Megamox]

Thanks! I'll be wearing out the click button on my mouse this evening then

PLUS, if any of you do make it down to London, there's a pint waiting

Regards,
Megamox

 

[picbits]

Where abouts in London ? I visit every now and again but don't get much further down than NW7

 

[Megamox]

Ah, I'm down south, haven't been up to the north for a while either I just got a call from one of the companies I originally emailed about recovering my data for me. The gentleman kindly explained that the 'beeping' sound, (as I described it back then) was caused by a seized spindle and there's only one way to retrieve the data - a complete platter exchange which he could do for me for the very reasonable price of £795 all in. I asked if it could possibly be anything else, like stiction or a faulty head? He said definitely not, he's been dealing with Seagate drives for well over 20 years. I said that it's alright now and that I managed to fix the issue myself with some paper, a sewing needle, a plastic CD and a hot air gun. Then the line went dead, I presume he put the phone down. I had to laugh

At least he was cheaper than Seagate

Regards,
Megamox