Harddrive Help

[RCM4926]

I have a Western Digital 160Gb Harddrive. WD1600JB. It started displaying messages when booting up that an imminent hard drive failure was near. This came up a couple of times and then it quit booting up all together. I could not get the drive to do anything at all. I removed the drive and installed a new harddrive and connected the old one as a slave. The computer does not see or display the old drive at all. I took it from this computer and connected it to an external harddrive enclosure that connects with a USB connection. The drive still does not show up at all. I did notice however that in the device manager of the control panel it shows the drive on the USB port, but I cannot get to it. Sometimes when I have the drive connected and turned on, the computer will sort of lock up. When I turn off the power to the external drive enclosure, it frees it up and the computer will work fine. The drive does not make any weird noises and it sounds like it still spins. I do not see any visible damage to the PCB. I removed the back of the drive momentarily and I do not see any damage to the platters. The read heads were all the way into the center. I put the back back on and tried it again but it still does not work. I would appreciate any suggestions or help on this. I thought it sounded like a defective PCB but am not sure. I have some photos that I would like to recover.

 

[Dangman]

You opened up the drive and exposed the platters to the air? IIRC, all it takes is a tiny spec of dust on the platters to ruin the hard drive permanently. So you may have damaged the drive.

Sorry man, but that drive is toast.

Also, if you were getting messages that that hard drive was facing an imminent failure, why did'nt you backup? I think you're one of the few people I've read about thats actually received a SMART warning ahead of time.

Anyway, hopefully someone can prove me wrong about you damaging the drive.

 

[RCM4926]

This is actually my brothers drive and I ask him the same thing. He didn't actually let me know about it until it had crashed. I figure if I can salvage the photos ok, but he should have had them backed up to begin with. Tough lesson learned! He now backs up his photos regularly. I tried to be a careful in opening it as possible. I wiped up the area real well and only had it open for less that a minute. Do you think it would be worthwhile to swap out the board?

 

[Dangman]

I tried to be a careful in opening it as possible. I wiped up the area real well and only had it open for less that a minute. Do you think it would be worthwhile to swap out the board?

What area did you wipe?

 

[Jedikid]

if you opened the drive i'm a 100% sure that you killed. a spec of dust on the platter is like running a semi into your face. (okay not that serious but still really bad).

 

[RCM4926]

I just wanted to let you SUPER Knowledge know it alls that replied to my post that you are full of crap. I am not an idiot and yes I did open the drive and expose it to the air. (How else are you going to look at it?) I am recovering well after the semi hit me in the face. But anyhow, just for the record, I was able to recover ALL of the data on the harddrive and the harddrive actually is bootable now. It is working fine and there are no problems with it. I have ran multiple diagnostics on it and there are now bad sectors or other problems with it. I successfully repaired it myself and I'll leave the jam and jelly to go with your toast, but my drive is fine! Thanks for all the worthless "help and comments" that I received. They semi one was the best! Maybe you outta try it!!