2.5" IDE HD Repair

waldo

My laptop hard drive recently went kaput - when I was "massaging" it to try and fix a problem where some of the keys didnt't work. I've tested it in an external enclosure and it seems dead (I can hear some rattling inside). Somebody suggested getting another hard drive and trying to replace the faulty heads. Anybody ever done this an been successful in recovering their data/hd?

Blogoffmen

to be honest you will never be able to repair it physically.
Rattling sound is no good either.

Wich "keys" didnt work for you?

Gone West

Put it in the freezer for a bit.
Usually does the trick.

irlrobins

FuzzyLogic wrote:

Put it in the freezer for a bit.
Usually does the trick.

serious? Never heard that one.

minikin

This is only a very temporary solution which may allow you to retrieve the data - gives you the chance to backup to another drive, the drive is all but dead. It is extremely expensive to have it professionally rebuilt, has to be done in cleanroom conditions.

Inspector Gadget

Hmm... I take it you were massaging the laptop (more specifically, the keyboard) rather than the hard disk?

Consider picking up an adaptor cable to be able to temporarily fit the drive into a desktop machine (actually, a USB/Firewire drive enclosure, makes more sense) - the freezing solution is *very* temporary (assuming it works) and you don't want to waste time trying booting the machine off the drive you're trying to rescue data off (which is getting warmer all the time it spends out of the freezer...) - a (half-open) enclosure should allow you go to from freezer to running drive in a few seconds, so that you can spend the few potential precious minutes getting data off your disk.

Gadget

waldo

Thanks for the comment guys. I read about the freezer trick before, so i might give that one a try. As for the bad keys, I was pressing different parts of the laptop case to try and fix the bad keys. There must have been an impact while i was doing this.

jor el

waldo wrote:

Somebody suggested getting another hard drive and trying to replace the faulty heads.

Somebody was talking through their hat me thinks

The freezer trick is probably your best bet. Though you'll need something to compy all your data onto, and quickly, when you take it out of the freezer. Unless you have an adapter to plug it into a PC you may not be able to copy off all your stuff. Can the laptop take two hard disks?

Also, I can't remember exactly, but does the freezer trick work for a physically damaged disk? I thought it would only work for one that was failing due to bad sectors.

WizZard

jor el wrote:

Somebody was talking through their hat me thinks

They meant the drive electronics. Can be done but is difficult, and really needs clean room conditions too.

jor el wrote:

Also, I can't remember exactly, but does the freezer trick work for a physically damaged disk? I thought it would only work for one that was failing due to bad sectors.

I won't work for bad sectors.

When the clicking occurs it means that the heads have/are hitting the platter on the hard drive. The heads are suspending microns above the surfacec of the platter by metal arms.
Cooling the metal causes it to contract, thereby raising the head form the surface of the platter and thus, hopefully, allowing the head to read the drive again.
It also cools the chips on the PCB, and the platters themselves, which may contract too.
It generally only works for a short time - hopefully enought to recover the data. Some data may be lost if the heads have damaged the drive surface when they crashed though.

<edit>Connect it as slave to another PC when trying to recover. I've averaged about 20-30 mins when using this trick to get data from drives, before the drive crashes again.

And use a ziploc freezer bag!! Condensation + Electronics = Bad</edit>

Inspector Gadget

As far as I remember (and can reason logically), the freezer trick is most effective against burnt-out drive electronics (for those of you old enough to remember, Quantum Fireballs, anyone?) or (in some instances) dodgy main bearings. The sickening clattering sound is often the sound of the drive heads practicing for the National Ploughing Championships on your platters - not good. Though sometimes it's just the servo controller doing stupid things, in which case freezing can help.

I'm not sure if I misunderstood jor_el, but it's easy to replace the drive electronics - just unplug the old board and whack in a new one - but opening the drive body itself is another matter

Gadget

jor el

Ah, I knew it was one type of problem it could fix and one it wouldn't, I had them the wrong way around. Didn't work for a friend of mine recently when his drive went clickety-click, but then it doesn't always work anyway. That's why I thought it might not fix physical damage.

The PCB on the back of the drive could be replaced with one from the same model easily enough yes, but the OP said "replace the faulty heads" which could really only be done by professionals in a clean room environment. Not something you could do at home with a soldering iron and a torx screwdriver.

Might be worth investigating the electronics but if it doesn't work then you may end up with two broken hard disks