What a bummer that was 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.        

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?

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.

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.

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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.