Knackered HDD

[Jo3y]

My mum's PC had a power surge a few weeks back that screwed up absolutely everything in it. It was sent away and everything replaced, the HDD has been sent back but I've just been trying to get some data off it and it's having none of it.

Plugged it into a spare PC at work and booted into Slax Linux but it didn't detect the drive. Went into the BIOS and it's not even detecting it in there. Opened the case and it smelt like something was burning. Basically I think the platters and data will be intact and it's just the circuit board and possibly the motor that are screwed.

My question is, if I buy an identical HDD would it be possible to swap the ciruit boards without any soldering or other nasty sh*t involved? I work on third line support for HP so I'm not too shaby with most stuff, but not been involved in hardware for quite some time so thought I'd ask you guys.....

Cheers

 

[V1NNY]

yes its possible, but if the heads have damaged the platters then its all gone, you can also do a platter transfer but you need a very clean enviroment and keep all the platters perfectly in line

 

[H182]

Depends how important the data is, but might be better to send it to one of them recovery places. Think they cost alot though!

 

[Jo3y]

Sorry guys... almost forgot about this thread. Yeah basically it has all my mum's photo's on from the last 3 years, very silly indeed of them not to back it up!

I'm not going to try the platter transfer but think I'll try to swap the rest. As the HD doesn't even get detected it should at lest sort that out... then if the head's are screwed then I'll tell them to ship it off to a recovery place, but as you said mate, they're very expensive!

 

[b3nje]

Depends how important the data is, but might be better to send it to one of them recovery places. Think they cost alot though!

they cost stupid amounts of money...and i mean stupid amounts

 

[KDF]

Yes, you can use the controller board from an identical hard drive to try and get the data off, its worth a try and certainly your cheapest option, no soldering is required as it uses special ribbon cables to do all the connections.


PS. Backup Backup Backup

 

[FiDoDiDo]

Done the swapping of the electronics board a few times at work to recover data. We used to keep old hard drives just for the electronics board.

Does the drive spin at all when you power it?

 

[Jo3y]

I don't think so mate, I'll have another look later today, I'm pretty sure no power is getting to the motor at all. There's a slight burning smell as well so it's not looking good!