Maxtor basics hard drive repair

[krio2014]

Hi,
I have a maxtor basics external hard drive (1TB) that's died on me. It produces a knocking sound when in use. I have a couple of questions;

Firstly, I do not have the original power supply and I am not sure on what voltage the hard drive requires. If I find and purchase the correct power supply, would this solve the issue? I ask because I have read somewhere that if it doesn't receive the correct voltage it won't have enough power to work the internal mechanisms.

Secondly and more importantly, I'm thinking of purchasing another hard drive to transfer the hard drive pallets from one to another. Do I need the same make and model hard drive i.e maxtor basics or doesn't it matter so long as it is a 1TB.

All I want to do is get my family photos off of the drive, and I don't want to pay hundreds of pounds to a data retrieval company.

Adam

 

[USAFRet]

1. "Knocking sound" - not good

2. Power supply. Unknown, but as per #1, it doesn't sound like a power supply problem

3. "transfer the hard drive pallets from one to another."
You mean take it apart and attempt to transfer the 'platters' ? Do not do this.

My recommendation?
Take the external enclosure apart and get the whole drive out.
Get a USB dock or cable and try to access the disk that way.

But a 'knocking sound' doesn't give a warm fuzzy as to the actual drive working.

 

[popatim]

How were you powering it up if you dont have the power supply? Powering up with wrong one might have caused more damage - This was not a good idea.

As stated, transferring platters is not a good idea either and should be done in a clean room. A dust particle is like a giant boulder to the heads. Attempting it will also likelymake the drive completely unrecoverable, even by the professionals. The platters need to maintain their exact alignment with each other for example. Move one even a hairs width out of alignment and bye bye all your data.

I'm not saying it cant be done. Plenty have succeeded and had the drive work long enough to recover their files. What I'm saying is if the files are truly that important then pay the professionals. You only do this when you dont really care if you lose them all. You might be saying no way these pics are worth 400 pounds - then yeah go ahead and give it a try and then you wont cry if you fail either.