Topic: It might happen to you too

[joudi]

I's still new..Just two months ago I bought it.

A HDD which I used in an external box.

160 gb of capacity.

I filled about 130 gb of it.

All my music, films, programs, data, games and other personal things.

It just stopped    Doesn't work anymore...

I tried to see if the box was faulty. It wasn't.

I fixed it inside the tower.  Nothing...

Unfortunately..I was just thinking to start copying the important things from it into DVD's...Just I was late some days. Here are the consequences.

Don't delay if you have the project to copy or to double it.

It might happen at any time to anyone...  

[Tony]

What a bummer that was joudi  :'(

[Simon]

Sorry to hear that, Joudi, but there may be hope if you take the drive to a professional.  As it just stopped working, if you're lucky, it may be a repairable problem, and your data may still be intact.  It's not as if you managed to overwrite anything.  I suppose it depends how valuable your data is / was, but as you may well know, data recovery services are not cheap, but if it's more of a mechanical fault, it may be repairable at a reasonable cost.

[joudi]

Thanks Simon for your idea.

Yes Simon, I'm already working on that point, searching informations in the site of "Maxtor".

The HDD is garanteed 3 years. There's a part on their site about that. I didn't yet finish reading to see if they'll be ready to transfer my data to another HDD in case it's not possible to repair.

In fact, I still have hope in that way. If not...well...I can continue my life without it. It's just a matter of one more year of downloading.        

[Dack]

Is the disc still seen by the bios? If so then I've got a few tools here that should allow you to get the data back and copy to another drive.

If it's a hardware fault, and the drive is not seen, then you are looking at a very expensive data recovery - when I lost all the data on a work hard disc due to a faulty drive controller on the drive (Fujitsu 20Gig - entire range 10G,20G had problems where the drive would suddenly die on you). They were asking for about 450 UKPounds for repair/recovery.

Maxtor are very good with faulty drives though - if you select advanced RMA then you get a new drive and have to send the faulty one back to them.

[Simon]

Would Maxtor not be able to transfer the data to a new drive for him, Dack?  It seems the least they could do if it's a faulty drive, only two months old.  It obviously can't cost £450 to recover data - that's what the recovery firms charge, because they realise the value of some data, and can get away with it, yes?

[ketamininja]

I believe that they will not recover the data.
It is quite easy, for maxtor - worse case a part has died (probably board) so they need an EXACT type board or part to get it up and running to recover data....

...hard drive crashes are a normal everyday thing unfortunately, which is why they wont do it... too much work, for nothing.

I believe its also part of the warranty - YOU are responsible for data back up because its electronic equipment which is sensitive etc etc... its warranty is there because it may fail! If it wouldn't fail, then you wouldn't need a three year warranty. Also note, that its three years - after that ANYTHING can happen, which just goes to show you you shouldn't rely on it.

Backup backup backup. Its expensive and time consuming, but if you can, RAID it... imo.


There are "unofficial recalls" all the time. Last big one I heard of was Fujitsu, 200,000 HDDS in the UK... but you didn't know about it. If it was 500,000 or something, then they would recall I believe.... something like that. IBM had a lot with their deskstars (I think they sold it now right when that was happenein... no wonder it was "unofficial"!  >

[joudi]

Is the disc still seen by the bios? If so then I've got a few tools here that should allow you to get the data back and copy to another drive.

No...and a little yes (by XP).

In fact, as it's in an external box, I gave it the name "External Drive".

XP, after a lot of efforts, arrives sometimes to see it and recognize it as "Local Drive" (not it's real name). When I clic on it, it can't open it and it doesn't even give me it's propriety. So, It's not really known by XP.

On the other hand, when it's connected, my system can't close windows till I remove it completely from the USB, and it doesn't start neither.

When I connect it, I feel that it's turning inside, and it gives some clic..clic..from time to time. It shows the little light red (also from time to time) but it goes back to green. (Usually when it starts, or when I enter into it, it must show permanantly the red little light of the box).

I compared it with another "Maxtor" which I have. Seemed to me that the external plastic which forms it's box is not as smooth as the other in the area of the turning disc. My conclusion is, maybe it was overheated.

Anyway, thanks to both of you Dack and Simon for your care.  

Seems to me that "Maxtor" accepts the intervention of other external societies to get back the data. Of course those societies must provide their legal report to Maxtor to be accepted by the guarantee.

No, I'm not thinking to pay to another society. If Maxtor will do that for me, it's ok. If not, well...It'll be lost. I didn't yet read all the details in maxtor web site.

[Reno]

im not sure about external usb drives but i had an old teacher that would take the controller off his bad 2gig hds and replace the controllers on others. He was actually successful at reparing an hd that had gotten fryed by a lightning storm.

It really sucks when s**t happens you know you could've prevented. Its like Gods sticking his foot in your arse for not making the most out of life. Ive lost data before in reinstallations. It really blows balls. I feel for ya dack

[Rodders]

Since first discovering the joys of home computing, I've had 3 H/D's die on me.  It isn't funny when it happens.  All you can do is hope that you're 1 month inside the warranty period, rather than a month too late.

When my previous drive (IBM 60GB Deskstar) completely lost its ability to revolve last year, I was quite shocked to find out just how much stuff I hadn't burned to CD-ROM.  Five years worth of email was one of them.  I hope you're luckier, Joudi.

Since, at the time I bought it, IBM were confidently giving out 3-year warranties with their drives, I had no problem getting a replacement.  However, it's worth noting that IBM drives that were bought only a couple of months later, only carried a 1-year warranty.  Shortly afterwards, IBM sold their entire H/D division to Fujitsu.

So, having by then lost any confidence in hard drives, I went for the mirrored RAID array I have now; and my replacement 60GB Fujitsu lives in an external USB 2 case - which gets worryingly warm whenever it needs to do anything that even remotely resembles hard work.

As for rescuing any data that you had stored on a defective drive - no manufacturer will.  Sadly, it's in the small print of the warranty when you buy a drive.

So the moral of this story is:  Never, ever, trust a hard drive to keep your data safe - because sooner or later it won't!  Always backup data to a seperate external device and keep more than one copy.

This message was brought to you by our sponsor:  Bitter Experience.  

[Dack]

Would Maxtor not be able to transfer the data to a new drive for him, Dack?  It seems the least they could do if it's a faulty drive, only two months old.  It obviously can't cost £450 to recover data - that's what the recovery firms charge, because they realise the value of some data, and can get away with it, yes?

They won't pay for data recovery - As was pointed out they guarantee the hardware will be able to store/retrieve 1's and 0's. They don't accept responsability for any value you put on the data. Its a bit like getting photographs developed at Boots - If you spent 5K on a once in a lifetime holiday and they messed up the photographs then they wouldn't pay you the 5K to take the holiday again to get the photographs back.

Recovery does cost a lot as it is quite a specialised job involving some specialist machinary and can take a good few hours. On the Fujitsu drive I had that went faulty - I tried swapping over with a known good controller board but that didn't work. Turns out that the board was linked to the hardware used in the drive and the firmware on the microcontroller had about 20 different revisions. You had to get the correct firmware on the correct hardware before you could even think of getting the data back.

If the disc can be seen by the bios then you can usually get most of the data back sucessfully using certain applications that I've got on a disc here

[Dack]

There are "unofficial recalls" all the time. Last big one I heard of was Fujitsu, 200,000 HDDS in the UK... but you didn't know about it.

Bet you I did

The hard way

Of the 200+ machines that used them where I work - ALL went faulty. Evesham sent us a utility to check the drives and were sending us batches of 20 drives at a time to swap over as they failed. The failure occured about 10 months after installation and was apparently due to a dodgy chip on the controller board that allowed for copper creep due to the plastic compound the chip was encased in. You'd switch on one morning and the machine would then refuse to recognise the drive.

[ketamininja]

^ OUCH!