Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
geometry, electrical resistance lowered, electrical contact points adjusted, etc., assumed to be
the miracle here).
6. After the drive warms up to room temperature or better, rap it even harder with your
knuckle this time.
7. Repeat all of above steps on next day, as sometimes I've gotten data off drive simply by
trying again.
From: James McLaughlin
Hmmm sounds like a toughy to me. Back in the old days when I first started teching, if we ran
into a problem like this, there were only a few ways to deal with it. I will go over these options
now:
QUESTION: What do you think you can do about this, Mr. Tech?
First Answer Nothing, your computer is too old, and the data on there is not really of that
much importance. If you really want it back, you can get a hold of a company called "Total
Recall" out of Denver and get charged thousands of dollars to get your files back. Besides, with
Y2K, this machine ain't gonna run anyway, and prices are so low right now, there is no reason
why you should not upgrade now.
2) Well, I can take it back to the shop and pretend like I know what I am doing for 3-6 hours.
Then I will call you the for the next week and a half giving you excuses as to why I am not able
to get your information off of that hard drive. Of course, I won't charge you anything, but I will
expect compensation for all the time I wasted on your hard drive.
3) I could take the hard drive out of your machine, plug into my Secondary IDE controller, and
boot up. Hopefully, I can see your hard drive and have the ability to copy all of your files to a
temp folder on my machine called "Your Name." After I collect all information, I would run
IBM's WIPE on the drive and then a thorough scandisk, just to see if the cause was sunspot
related or not. If......this was not working, then extreme temperatures always have a way of
talking older hard drives into giving us what we want. I would then wrap the HD in a Ziplock
bag and slam it in the freezer
for 12 hours. Pull it out the next day and very quickly plug it into
my machine, copying what I can as quickly as possible until the drive dies again, repeating
until all files are copied and safe. If.....that don't work, move onto the extreme heat. A Shrink
wrap gun works best, but a hairdryer will do the trick if that is all you have. Wrap one end of
the HD in a towel and use the shrink wrap gun or dryer to heat the hard drive. Very quickly
plug it in and copy files until finished. Repeat until all necessary files are copied and you are
done. You may not think it works, but when you are down to that as your last option...it does.
