IDE HD NOT DETECTED

[luigi90]

About two days ago my brothers PC would no longer turn on. After doing a little bit of investigation (it's a 8 year old gateway) I came to the conclusion that the power supply went out. Fortunately for him, I have a much newer gateway that I was able to give him. However, when I tried placing the HD from the broke down PC to the new PC something strange happened. I still had the master HD connected with sata cables (new PC I am talking about) and then I put the old HD (from broken pc) via IDE. The first two times I did this the computer would detect my brother's HD and it would load his desktop but then the computer would freeze and the mouse would not work.

The third time I turned the new PC on the HD was no longer detected. It was also around this time that I started to smell something burning... 😱

Now, when I try to place the old HD into other computers they will not detected it... no matter what jumper settings I use or cables. I still don't think that the HD burned out or something. Besides messing with jumper settings, cable, and BIOS settings, what could possibly be going on?

Help would very much be appreciated!

 

[smorizio]

[if you set it to master and on a cable by itself and the bios of the pc dont see it then you may have shorted the drive out.
i would turn the drive over and look at the pcb and see if you see any melted chips. also try the smell test..most times that how you find burnt part if it does not show. if there is a burn mark you have to pick up the same drive or same pcb and swap them.

 

[Herr_Koos]

The failure may have been HDD in the first place, not power supply like you suspected.
If the drive is no longer detected, there isn't much you can do. Do you need to recover data off it?

 

[luigi90]

The failure may have been HDD in the first place, not power supply like you suspected.
If the drive is no longer detected, there isn't much you can do. Do you need to recover data off it?

Damn, I did not want to be hearing this, but it does make sense. Yes, I do need to recover data! How could I go about doing it?

 

[Herr_Koos]

There are tools available to do a scan and repair yourself, but this is sort of dependant on the drive at least being visible in BIOS. If you can get a PC to detect it there may be some hope, otherwise you will need to take it to an IT professional for a data recovery (which costs money, unfortunately).

 

[fzabkar]

@luigi90, it appears that your drive may have a PCB fault, in which case the solution is usually an easy DIY job costing no more than US$50. In fact, in your case it may even turn out to be free.

Could we see a photo of the damaged board?

What is the model number of your drive?

 

[luigi90]

So the drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB ATA/133 HDD.
Here is a pictures of the board.

http://i46.tinypic.com/315xyx0.jpg

 

[fzabkar]

AIUI those older pre-Seagate PCBs can be swapped without modification.

I can't make out anything in your photo, but if you want to make some measurements, then the following thread should help you:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-Barracuda-Barracuda/PCB-layout-Maxtor-DiamondMax-Plus-9-ATA-133/m-p/118568

 

[luigi90]

I am kind of confused right now. What exactly is my next step? What can I do to salvage or at least recover the data from this hard drive without spending any or too much money? (Sorry, be patient!)

 

[fzabkar]

If a drive does not attempt to spin up, then the PCB is usually at fault. If this is the case, then your most expedient solution would be a board swap. You are lucky in that your board does not require a chip transfer.

See the following guides:
http://www.donordrives.com/hard-drive-pcb-donor-swap-match
http://www.donordrives.com/blog/pcbswapguide

Sometimes the board fails due to an overvoltage from the power supply. In such cases, if the drive is equipped with TVS diodes, as yours is, the relevant diode (12V or 5V) will attempt to protect the drive by going short circuit. There are two 12V TVS diodes, one near the power connector (CR200, BUX marking), and one near the SMOOTH motor controller (CR501, BUX marking). I can't see a 5V TVS diode.

See http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

If a TVS diode is shorted, then the simple solution is to remove it with flush cutters. The drive will work without it, but you will no longer have overvoltage protection on that supply rail. That said, if one of your diodes were shorted, then the PSU would have shut down. There would have been a single kick of the fans, and then nothing.

If you have a multimeter, and if you know how to use it, then remove the PCB from the drive and measure the test points that I have identified for you. This may not end up being any more than just a post mortem exercise, but it might help us understand what killed your drive.