Dead Hard Drive: won't spin up

Computer Hardware SSDs, Hard Drives and NAS
#1

My brother awoke last week to his computer not running. I went over and pulled all the cards and memory, etc… but it would not power on. I put in a spare power supply and it booted up (no monitor or keyboard, just heard it power on). I got the new power supply today, but when the computer boots up it does not detect the hard drive. I put the hard drive in another computer and it is not detected. When the machine powers on I can feel that the drive is not spinning up.

Here’s my problem. He is a musician that had several gigs of unfinished music on the drive. It is not worth the $$$ for a data recovery service to recover the data. I have taken a multimeter and verified there is continuity through the drive to the motor.

Have any of you guys ever “hacked” a drive somehow by hooking up a different motor? I have several old drives here that have working motors that I was thinking in a worse case senerio I could try and rig up to get the drive spinning. If I can get the drive spinning I have software to recover the data.

Any opinions or advice :slight_smile:

#2

Other than power supply problems, stiction (static friction) is the usual cause of a hard drive’s failure to spin. The drive heads become stuck to the platter and the motor can’t overcome the sticking force.

To fix this problem, the platters must be rotated with enough force to free the heads. Twisting the drive violently in the same horizonal plane as the heads will usually free them. The inertia of the heavy platters tends to keep them from moving while the heads are moved around them.

If this doesn’t work, let us know and we can pursue “last resort” methods to get the drive spinning again. :wink:

#3

I tried banging the drive against the desktop hoping to free up the drive head :slight_smile: Didn’t work.

Guess I’m gonna open it up and see if the drive heads hit the platters (I know this is BAD!!!)

#4

Originally posted by Daemonicus
[B]I tried banging the drive against the desktop hoping to free up the drive head :slight_smile: Didn’t work.

Guess I’m gonna open it up and see if the drive heads hit the platters (I know this is BAD!!!) [/B]

This is NOT what I recommended. Banging the drive against a desktop is a very good way to permanently damage the drive.

#5

I tried twisting it too.
and I shoud say I tapped it against the desktop…

It would appear that whatever took out the P/S (or the P/S going bad) may have damaged some of the cards to. I installed a spare hard drive and used Ghost to restore an image of the drive after all drivers were installed. However, now the SBLive is coming up with no drivers installed and when the latest drivers are applied, the card comes up as “?SBLive” in the device manager. I am going to have to pull cards one by one and check them in an another old computer to see if they are functioning or not.
So at this point I don’t know if the circuitry on the drive is no good or if the heads stuck to the platter causing a power consumption surge taking out the P/S.

Any further opinions?

#6

Originally posted by Inertia
[B]Other than power supply problems, stiction (static friction) is the usual cause of a hard drive’s failure to spin. The drive heads become stuck to the platter and the motor can’t overcome the sticking force.

To fix this problem, the platters must be rotated with enough force to free the heads. Twisting the drive violently in the same horizonal plane as the heads will usually free them. The inertia of the heavy platters tends to keep them from moving while the heads are moved around them.

If this doesn’t work, let us know and we can pursue “last resort” methods to get the drive spinning again. :wink: [/B]

Inertia, your knowledge never ceases to amaze me !!!

I just acquired a dead notebook from a friend a few days ago who got very distraught at loosing all his documents (he’s a lawyer and had lost all his court documents)! Imagine the loss! After reading this post, I decided to give your trick a try and it worked! enough to retrieve all his data :smiley:

Since he’s saved my a$$ once (he is very samrt and very quick with an acute sense of fairness) I’m really glad I was able to glad to retrieve his work! :slight_smile:

Inertia, this is well deserved :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: !!!

#7

Thank you very much, 83bj60 my friend. :slight_smile:

I’m glad that you were able to save your friend’s a$$ this time. :bigsmile:

#8

for what its worth, I pulled the cover off of the drive and the platters still spin freely.

Anyone know of a way to get this thing spinning again so I can try and recover the data?

#9

If the platters spin freely (and you haven’t already damaged the heads), apply power to the drive to see if it spins up.

If the platters are free but won’t spin under power, the drive logic board is responsible for most failures. It contains the motor control circuits in most drives.

Some drive manufacturers sell drive logic boards separately, but it may be cheaper to find a used drive with the same logic board and salvage it for parts to see if the board is at fault.

#10

A description of how to swap logic boards :
http://www.deadharddrive.com

#11

I also have a problem with a hard drive that won’t spin up. When I boot up, the computer stops when trying to indentify the ide drives. I think it got damaged when I inserted the power supply with the power on (not thinking). I’ve tried to twist the drive horizonally, and used different power sources, both without success. Any opinions on what’s wrong or what to do would be appreciated!

Is ther any way to indentify if the drive heads are stuck to the platter or if the logic board is responsible for the failure, without opening it?

Or is it any reason to believe that the discs has been physically damaged?

Disk info:
IBM, Deskstar, 41.0gb, 7200 rpm.
Model: IC35L040AVER07-0
p/n: 07n6654

#12

the drive could be electrically damaged as a result of plugging in the power while the comp was on, although i’m not sure about that.

#13

yes. i think that’s how it got damaged. but i hope to figure out if it’s the logical board or the motor that’s damaged. Or if it’s static friction between drive heads and the platter, that’s stopping the driv from spinning up.

if i indentify the problem, i may be able to rescue the files…

#14

Could you explain How to “twist the drive violently in the same horzional plane as the heads” . Do you just spin the drive in the air? Powered or unpowered?

#15

Hold the drive as if it were a frisbee and then simulate throwing it like a frisbee (but don’l let go of the drive and don’t let it hit anything).

I haven’t tried his myself but seen it done in a video. I have no idea if this will work.

Welcome to CDFreaks! :slight_smile:

#16

before removing/replacing all the parts did you try wiggling the wires and pushing it in?

same thing happened to me… fan and hd didn’t come on but after doing what i suggested it did.

if that doesn’t work try putting the hd into another computer or stick it into an external device. if it works (hopefully the whacking technique didn’t screw it up) then there’s no need to open the drive and further turning it into a brick.

#17

Hi all, funny i seem to google this place everytime i have an odd hardware fault and here i am again finding a perfect thread CDFREAKS nice one again :slight_smile:

I read that replace logic boards was shocked and suprised that it was so easy and that there seems to be no selling bords, though tommorow i plan to spend the day ringing any and every one i can think of.

My issue is i had 500GB HDD ( now i never had one just n ot work all have indicated there failures in the past so i wasnt scared to have all info on one hdd with no back ups ( its hard to back up a 500GB drive unless you mirror etc so i opted for the suck it and see)

I accidentally knoccked it hard while messing about with my shuttle. And now when you plug the power in its tries to do somthing then stops get like a stepper motor electrical noise increase in frequency then a ugh noise and tties again 5 times then gives up.

It dosnt have jumpers so to speak but one setting said PUIS power up in standby, when i jumpered that the disk spins up! but cant be found by anything,

So would you agree that sounds like an engineboard ?

If so i just need to hunt down the same type of drive ( same firmware rev too ! ouch ) swap the logic retreave the info swap logic back and RMA the original bad drive.

Gonna persue Western digital gonna nag and beg them for help on buying just the engine board and if they dont sell it to me or help me i will sware at them hang up :slight_smile: i might ring around depending how ez it too see if anyone does do this and then probably stick to that manufacturer in future. out i could fill that second drive up too lol :stuck_out_tongue: and then i have a 2nd 500GB hdd maybe its mirror time b

Thanks for this thread i let ya know what happends maybe :slight_smile:

#18

I have the same problem w/ my Maxtor external hard drive. Not spinning. I have gotten a lot of suggestions. Freeze it, shake it, tap it and try it in another computer. Ok, so i tried it all…and nothing! This really stinks, because i have a lot of family photos on there. OH NO…

Am I all out of options here??

#19

I’ll throw my hat into the ‘same-problem’ ring…
I’ve got a 300Gb hd that has been working fine for 2 years. I’ve wiped it and reloaded it about 4-5 times. The last time was about 4 months ago.
I was playing Fallout 3 tonight (for about the hundreth time on this computer) and I got yet another video card crash that are common with Fallout 3.
However, this time, it would not return to the desktop and I was forced to do a hard reboot. When it came back up, the drive would not spin up.
It sounds like there is absolutely no power getting to the drive at all. I have tried different power cables and data cables, I tried the “spin violently on same horizontal plane” trick and it still gets no power.

I wanted to add my info in case the ‘Fallout 3 crash’ might have anything to do with it.

Recently, I had put some very time-sensitive work files on my gaming rig (because it can handle the graphic load much better) and I had not run a backup yet.

PLEASE someone come up with a solution to this so I can get my work files back.

#20

Ok, in MY case, I put the bad hd in another computer and it booted right up. If I put a good hd in my gaming rig, it ALSO does not boot up.

So, I assume my problem is a bad power supply on the gaming rig. Would you guys agree?