Broken Hard drive

[AdamDay]

I posted something on this same topic a while ago, I only got one response which, while helpful, didn't fix anything. I thought I might have another go. Basically, I cleverly managed to kill two hard drives by putting the black power lead in the red socket and vice versa. I assume that this blew a diode/connection or something inside the drives. I doubt it killed the motor outright. Does anyone have any experience of this problem? I'd really like to get the data off these drives.

The old thread is here:

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66297

any input would be valuable.

Thanks

 

[King X13]

you most likely blew the motor doing that. cant really hook things up backwards and expect them to work lol. your drive its prob just a paper weight now. yes your data is prob intact but theres no way to spin the motor.

i know this doesnt help you but just letting you know your chances are near to none of getting that data since you did something electrical to the hard drive.

Ok but what happend when you powered it up, did it smoke? or just not spin? or what exectally did it do. and what does it do now when you try to power it on the right way ? and see if we can go from there.

 

[AdamDay]

Thanks for the response.

There's no sound coming from it (unless I cant hear it over the fan). There are two drives that don't work - one is recognised as being there by the computer, but I can't get data off it. That is: I get a "new hardware detected" speech bubble and then a "problem installing" bubble and then it doesn't come up in "my computer" with the rest of them. The other drive apparently does nothing at all.

In my limited experience of motors I've found that putting power in the wrong way round like that just makes them spin backwards and I'm sure that if that broke them I'd have heard something. that's why i was hoping it was some other component. But then, HD motors are probably more complicated than those in a radio controlled car!

If I could get a new motor, is it possible I could resurrect the drive for long enough to get the data (at least some) off it without it dying first?

 

[King X13]

lol yeah hard drive motors is a little different then a RC car. i have done this once only for fun because i had extra old hard drives that i was willing to risk. i took 2 working hard drives of the same exect model and swaped the disks on the inside of the hard drive that holds that data. and they worked. you need to wear cotton gloves while handling the disks as they are very sensitive.


thats the best way i can think going about it. if you try and replace the motor think its pretty complicated where changing the disks out as long as your carefull isnt crazy hard.