Is this normal? Or is the hard drive dead.

H

hondaman

The OG Hondaman
Joined
Jul 31, 2004
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This is a 3 week old 200 gig Maxtor diamondmax plus9 sata hard drive that was connected to an 11 drive sata raid 5 array on a 3ware controller card. I havent taken apart a hard drive in years, so I didnt know what to expect. The drive started "beeping" and making clicking sounds.

Yes, I realize this voided the warranty Here is what I found:

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Are those marks on the platters normal? Or is this drive simply screwed?
 
Back on topic, no those marks are not normally. On a properly working hard drive the platters have a mirror finish. Those grooves are signs of either a head crash (the read/write heads physically touching the platters) or some dust/dirt that rubbed against the platter.

More than likely the heads hit the platter, that was the beeping and grinding.
 
Im still not sure why you voided your warranty on a 3 week old drive. Its not like Maxtor wont know you opened it.
 
In answer to your questions on why I opened it: it would cost several thousands of dollars to recover the data, and the data on my array isnt worth that much. If the drive failed for a simple reason, I could have "repaired" it long enough at least to pull the data off of it.
 
sorry about your loss, but thanks for the cool pictures - never seen the inside of a drive before
 
hondaman said:
In answer to your questions on why I opened it: it would cost several thousands of dollars to recover the data, and the data on my array isnt worth that much. If the drive failed for a simple reason, I could have "repaired" it long enough at least to pull the data off of it.
Click to expand...

sorry for your loss but you compounded it by opening the HDD
it would be virtually impossible to clean and reseal it well enough for an RMA
and there really are no "user fixable" parts inside a HDD, the tolerences are far far too tight
and the parts too specialized
 
Ice Czar said:
sorry for your loss but you compounded it by opening the HDD
it would be virtually impossible to clean and reseal it well enough for an RMA
and there really are no "user fixable" parts inside a HDD, the tolerences are far far too tight
and the parts too specialized
Click to expand...


I never intended to RMA it. And as far as opening it, I had nothing to lose. People have fixed their own hard drives (google)
 
heh. As I said, google it. Its out there. Ill give ya a few days of searching, and if you still cant find it, ill link you to a few pages on it.
 
hondaman said:
heh. As I said, google it. Its out there. Ill give ya a few days of searching, and if you still cant find it, ill link you to a few pages on it.
Click to expand...
There are people who have revived a dead or dying hard drive but not by opening the top usually. They usually repair them by swapping the controller board on the bottom of the drive. A platter transplant is possible but I don't know anyone personally who's ballsy enough to try it.
 
or the freezer trick
but with the head fly height at 2 microns, physically opening the drive, even in an improvised cleanroom, is pointless
 
Ice Czar said:
or the freezer trick
but with the head fly height at 2 microns, physically opening the drive, even in an improvised cleanroom, is pointless
Click to expand...


It most certainly isnt if I could salvage ANY of the data off of it.
 
hondaman said:
I never intended to RMA it. And as far as opening it, I had nothing to lose. People have fixed their own hard drives (google)
Click to expand...

If you make an open-ended statement, it's your responsibility to back it up. Not ours to scour the internet for it. ;)

We're not at a scavenger hunt; we don't need a "few days of searching" for it. If you want to use it, link it.

Kkthx! :)

It most certainly isnt if I could salvage ANY of the data off of it.
Click to expand...

I think the point was that you eliminated any chance of data recovery by opening it. :(
 
interesting thread....

seems to me if you know so much about hard drives you would have known those marks aren't normal

even I thought something looked wrong and I haven't seen the inside of a hard drive before
 
hondaman said:
This is a 3 week old 200 gig Maxtor diamondmax plus9 sata hard drive that was connected to an 11 drive sata raid 5 array on a 3ware controller card. I havent taken apart a hard drive in years, so I didnt know what to expect. The drive started "beeping" and making clicking sounds.
Click to expand...
hondaman said:
In answer to your questions on why I opened it: it would cost several thousands of dollars to recover the data, and the data on my array isnt worth that much. If the drive failed for a simple reason, I could have "repaired" it long enough at least to pull the data off of it.
Click to expand...

Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, the real question is: If the drive is part of a raid 5 array, why would you need to recover the data off the drive? Just put a new drive in, and rebuild the array, and no data is lost, that's the point of redundancy.
 
Soralis said:
Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, the real question is: If the drive is part of a raid 5 array, why would you need to recover the data off the drive? Just put a new drive in, and rebuild the array, and no data is lost, that's the point of redundancy.
Click to expand...


I had a drive drop out of the array. When it was rebuilding, the drive in the picture failed.
 
I feel for you man, I lost a RAID 5 through following the manual once
said that it would autorecognize drives in a migration,
but that turned out to be an early flaw in the BIOS later fixed

with 6 HDD there was only 720 possible different combinations of drives to channels :rolleyes:

how much was backed up?
 
Ice Czar said:
I feel for you man, I lost a RAID 5 through following the manual once
said that it would autorecognize drives in a migration,
but that turned out to be an early flaw in the BIOS later fixed

with 6 HDD there was only 720 possible different combinations of drives to channels :rolleyes:

how much was backed up?
Click to expand...


:(

none.

:(

Thank God however, the home DV movies i still have on the original tape (all 40 of them), so _thats_ not lost. And I was able to get my pictures off the array while it was degraded, before the second drive failed. Everything else is gone forever.

Painfull leason. I knew this would bite me sooner or later.

I am actually gonna call 3ware on monday, and see if there is any low-level commands that would make it force a rebuild. The first drive dropped out. Fine. The second drive dropped, and I am screwed. However, It would seem that if I replace the second drive and somehow force it to rebuild, I hopefully can recover some of it.
 
2 tb array? wow. about that harddrive, its one of the worse I've ever seen. everytime I open hdds the platters have a mirror finish I've been able to replicate platters like yours only after I take a blade to a spinning platter.
 
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