HDD Recovery?

[SirFoxx]

I pulled out my quadra today to try something out on it and I found out that the hard drive may be bad. It is constantly clicking, and I fear there is no hope for this drive. A few months ago, it started doing this, however, after a few seconds it would stop doing that and would start loading Mac OS with no problem. Now, it doesn't want to anymore. I know that the coating on the platter wears out over time, but just from sitting? Of everything that was on the 160mb hdd, I would love to get my TADS game off of it that my friend and I made for a school project. I feel stupid for not backing up that game.

 

[MacTech68]

What model of drive is it?

Can you get a good recording of the sound it is making and post it somewhere?

 

[tdiaz]

Spinning and clicking, changing speeds, or just clicking?

.. might take it out, and flick/rotate it on the axis at power up, if it's not spinning. Might be "stiction".

You'll have to undo ribbon cables so you can reach stuff, and handle it. Pull the power cable from the drive, turn on the Mac, let it sit at the blinking folder screen, stick the power cable in and rotate the drive briskly about the axis.

If it's spinning up/down and not coming ready, i've had good results with pulling/sticking in the power cable at the right interval to keep the drive spinning. Right past the clicking when it would spin down, I pull the power and apply it again. Eventually I'd find that the drive would no spin down and stay in the "ready" state. Then I gingerly put the 50 pin cable in and set the drive down.

The spinup/down thing I'd usually do with an external power supply. Though I've got one here modified with an SPDT switch in-line on the power, to make it smoother/faster.

..and then there's "freeze the drive". I've put them in a double walled ziplock bag and set them in the freezer for a while. Usually overnight or a whole day worth. Then applying the power flicking bit makes them stay if they don't just spin up right away after that.

.. and there's some out there that are probably cringing at this. To each his own.

In my experience, based on tales I'v heard, things that have been brought to me for aid.. the most common places for drives to fail is "on the shelf", followed by, "at startup".

Rarely do they seem to fail in use.

Copy your stuff any chance you get.

 

[SirFoxx]

I made a "Video Response" in a sense. It is currently uploading to youtube--The platter spins up no problem. The arm is moving back and forth in a certain spot, I think looking for the MBR? I tried freezing it near 0*F for about 1/2 hour, but I didn't think to try it overnight. Since I have opened the case, is there a possibility of frost forming on the platter?

The model is IBM-H3171-S2.

http://youtu.be/N0D71ru7LvA

I hope links like these are acceptable...

 

[ChrisA]

I made a "Video Response" in a sense. It is currently uploading to youtube--The platter spins up no problem. The arm is moving back and forth in a certain spot, I think looking for the MBR? I tried freezing it near 0*F for about 1/2 hour, but I didn't think to try it overnight. Since I have opened the case, is there a possibility of frost forming on the platter?

The model is IBM-H3171-S2.

http://youtu.be/N0D71ru7LvA

I hope links like these are acceptable...

If youh have opened the case, it's dead. The smallest spec of dust is pretty much death to a disk drive. The clinking noise is because it can't find a track.

The coating never does werar off the platters because the heads don't contact the platter. If they do then there is damage beyond repair. Contact destroys both the head and platter.

 

[MacTech68]

Sadly, I never had much luck with those IBM drives. It could be anything with those symptoms.

The slight wear marks are pretty normal, but probably not the cause.

I'm not a proponent of freezing drives, but rather cooling them but not beyond the dew point. I would also recommend trying a gentle warm up too (but not schorchingly hot).

On the 2.5" IBM drives in the PowerBook 100 Series I found that gentle, sustained pressure on one of the ICs on the drive's logic board would make it spring back to life (long enough to get the data off).

 

[SirFoxx]

Sadly, I never had much luck with those IBM drives. It could be anything with those symptoms.

I'm not a proponent of freezing drives, but rather cooling them but not beyond the dew point. I would also recommend trying a gentle warm up too (but not schorchingly hot).

On the 2.5" IBM drives in the PowerBook 100 Series I found that gentle, sustained pressure on one of the ICs on the drive's logic board would make it spring back to life (long enough to get the data off).

How would one go about warming up the drive..? I left it on overnight thinking it would warm up itself, but it didn't. Do you think putting it in the fridge would be a better idea? I tried pressing on some of the IC's, but no luck. Just for fun, I've included a pic of the circuit board on it.

 

[ChrisA]

How would one go about warming up the drive..? I left it on overnight thinking it would warm up.....

An IR heat lamp at a safe distance would warm it up just fine. But I doubt it would have any effect.

There is a small chance the failure is in the logic board and not the drive mechanics. If you are lucky and this is the case then the trick is to buy another IDENTICAL disk drive, test that is works and swap logic boards.

I've seen a board swap work on older tech drives that are no longer made. Of course the fires thing you do if the drive works is copy all the data to a backup, twice at least. Then replace the drive with a brand new one and restore the data.

If the failure is mechanical you do about the same thing, first find an IDENTICAL working drive and disassemble the platters and swap them. This is not an easy job and you need a clean room, hair nets, face mask, latex gloves and so on. Better to pay someone who is set up to do it.

But why bother? buy a new drive and get the old OS off a bit torrent