Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
From: edward.fearon
So your hard drive has failed, eh?
And it's got that all important invoice/CV/document that you cannot afford to lose...
"It was working last time I used it" and "I never touched it" drift into the conversation. In the
case when a HD has failed, it can be due to a number of factors (so many that I wont indulge
you). However, one that I find that regularly is the fact that the drive will not spin up (listen for
spin up and spin down sounds). This can be a common problem particularly after a cold spell,
or after a weekend when the machine has been stuck in your spare room in the cold. I have it
on good authority that often this is caused by the lubricants on the spindles getting thicker due
to a temp drop... and the HD motor not having enough inertia to overcome the (now thicker)
lube. Well, you may just be able to recover most of the HD, or perhaps even just that one file
if you...
1) Take out the hard disk of the System Unit... get your local Techie Guru to do it for you if
you aren't happy…
2) And give it gentle twists along its horizontal axis.
3) Plug it in and try again... if it works, go to step 9 ASAP.
4) Switch on the monitor.
5) Rest the HD on the top back end of the monitor (forget it if you have a TFT!), where the HD
will gently warm up over the next 4-8 hours.
6) Put that disk back into the machine while it's hot/warm.
7) Cross your fingers.
8) Switch on the power.
9) If it works start ripping off the data as fast as you possibly can, if not put it on a radiator,
and leave for a while (then go to step 3).
10) If under warranty send it off, or if not buy a new one! And if that fails... PANIC! Or call a
professional Hard Drive Recovery Service!!!
From: Dan Calloway
I would take the following approach when trying to revive a hard drive that doesn't boot up
and where there is no startup disk that had previously been made: There are really three
different tasks involved here.
(1) To get your data off the hard disk;
(2) you must make the disk hardware respond to the system;
(3) you may want to make the disk bootable again and perhaps keep it in service. Here are the
steps involved:
(1) Boot from the floppy drive with whatever drivers and system files your system uses, then
try to read drive C. The first and most important piece of data on the hard disk is the MBR and
the partition table. There are a number of programs that will read an MBR. One such program
is a DOS program called Fdisk. Norton Utilities is another.
(2) If you can read drive C, backup the contents of the disk and then either reformat the disk
and reload the data. If you can't read see drive C, then start Fdisk or some other MBR reader
to see if the system acknowledges the existence of the hard drive.
