Hard drive failure help
 

Weird deal, I dropped my laptop from a very low height last night. I had no fear anything was damaged and it worked just fine right away. I used it for another hour or so then went to bed. When I woke up and turned it on it came out of sleep just fine and connected to the net, I tried to browse and the screen went to that transparency look and locked up. When I restarted it says it cannot locate an operating system...it no longer sees my hard drive.

Any chance of saving this thing? I know I can pay big bucks to save data but can the drive be repaired straight away? Is it likely a mechanical failure or connection or something? or can I assume there is actual damage to the platters?

I tried to boot from CD but it can't locate an operating system install to repair...any advice is appreciated as all my emails and files are gone (nothing critical but a huge hassle).

Any weird sounds it is making?

If you want, send it to me and I can try some low level recovery on it. The more you play with it, the more damage that can be done.

No noise at all, it acts like it's not there.

Can you verify whether it physically spins up?

When you run diagnostics it doesn't say 'hey you got issues with your hard drive", it basically doesn't see it. It doesn't try to run or anything, it's just not there.

Can you hear it, feel it spin
up?

You have other computers in the house. I'd download and burn a Linux live cd, boot from it and see if the drive shows up as a device.

That will give you an idea of whether it's a hardware or partition problem.

Laptop hds are real easy to get to, usually one small Phillips head on the bottom of the case. You can pop the cover off and make sure the connection is solid.

Worst case, the platters seized. That means it needs to go to the expensive shop to get the data off. If it spins, there is a chance I can do something, but it's 50/50.

It does not spin up from what I can tell, I did boot form a CD and it does not recognize the drive as even being there. I am cool with trying anything.

It could be that the outer PCB fried, which means you can get a drive and swap PCB's. Thwe donor drive needs to be the exact same model, down to the firmware to do this.

Is there anyway to tell what part of the drive failed?

Not really. I've been doing this awhile, so if the drive is in hand, I can get an idea of what failed. Really hard to try and explain.

OK, thx. They are coming out to replace it on Wednesday. I appreciate the offer and may ship it out to you. Very generous, thx!

Yikes.

...do yourself a favor and make your next drive an solid state drive. (SSD)

I hear ya, I'm not a data whore anyway so the smaller space is of no concern.

Good luck! Let me know if I can help.

Funny you should ask.

My main workstation PC at home had a HDD that went belly-up this past Saturday evening. Just a quick b"blue screen of death" then nothing. The o/s no longer recognizes the drive, although the BIOS seems to.

I connected the drive to another PC via a SATA-USB cable and also...nothing. I can hear it vibrating, but I suspect the motor, head assembly or HDD PCB went bye-bye.

It sure sounds like you have a HDD that had a latent failure due to the drop, and it took a bit more running for it to show up. DON'T run the drive more, or you risk further damage.

I'm an experienced computer guy since the days of the 6800 and 8086, but I will not attempt HDD internal hardware failure repair myself.

HDD software failures due to viruses, corrupt files, etc. - sure I'll fix those. I've even repaired drives that were progressively failing, but taking the readable data to another drive.

But HDD internal hardware failures - no.

Firstly, a PCB replacement requires the EXACT same drive (even the firmware needs to be the same) and some extreme skills hand-soldering what was originally done by machine. (Ever try hand soldering an SMT component? Not impossible, but extremely close to it.

Second, I don't have a class 100 (or better) clean room with ESD control that is required to open up a HDD.

If you need the data, bite the bullet and send the drive to one of the many organizations that specialize in data recovery. If you don't need the data, just get a new drive, start from scratch, and remember to frequently back up your data on an external drive of other archive media frequently.

BTW, my failed drive appears identical to the one pictured in the Wikipedia entry "data recovery".

Funny you should ask.

My main workstation PC at home had a HDD that went belly-up this past Saturday evening. Just a quick b"blue screen of death" then nothing. The o/s no longer recognizes the drive, although the BIOS seems to.

I connected the drive to another PC via a SATA-USB cable and also...nothing. I can hear it vibrating, but I suspect the motor, head assembly or HDD PCB went bye-bye.

It sure sounds like you have a HDD that had a latent failure due to the drop, and it took a bit more running for it to show up. DON'T run the drive more, or you risk further damage. A type 2 or 3 HDD failure is nothing to be casual about.

I'm a very experienced computer guy since the days of the 6800 and 8086, having built many PC's, but I will not attempt HDD internal hardware failure repair myself.

HDD software failures due to viruses, corrupt files, etc. - sure I'll fix those. I've even repaired drives that were progressively failing, by taking the readable data to another drive.

But HDD internal hardware failures - no.

Firstly, a PCB replacement requires the EXACT same drive (even the firmware needs to be the same) and some extreme skills hand-soldering what was originally done by machine. (Ever try hand soldering an SMT component? Not impossible, but extremely close to it.)

Second, I don't have a class 100 (or better) clean room with ESD control that is required to open up a HDD.

If you need the data, bite the bullet and send the drive to the pros - one of the many organizations that specialize in data recovery. If you don't need the data, just get a new drive, start from scratch, and remember to frequently back up your data on an external drive of other archive media frequently.

BTW, my failed drive appears identical to the one pictured in the Wikipedia entry "data recovery".

Whoa, slow down. Did you try reseating it yet?

Pull it out and push it back in. Maybe it's just loose. Happens to mine every couple of months because of the design.

I didn't see anywhere that you said you did, so if I missed it, I apologize, but if windows locks up and then it doesn't find it when it was running fine, that's where I'd go.

That was my thought, dropping it caused it to come unseated just enough to barely work. Make sure it's firmly seated and try one last time.

For the record, there is zero soldering needed to swap PCB's, zero. As I mentioned and another has mentioned, you do need to get the exact HDD w/FW to swap them out, if that is the issue.

Many years ago, in an older laptop, I had switched out drives, but needed to put the old one back to get data off. I quickly stuck it in, did not button things, up , but felt I could hold the drive in place long enough. Something happened and the drive dropped slightly at the end not connected. I heard a nice 'zzt' sound and that's all she wrote. PCB was fried. It does not take much to kill the PCB.

Again, lendaddy, I can recover certain drive failures. That's what I do. I do not do clean room work and leave that to the pros, but if the drive has failed a certain way, I can possibly get the data back and it would be a lot less expensive than the other route.