Fixing an External Harddrive

hello, i have a Lacie 500GB external harddrive that's been sweet and i've stored a lot of stuff on there. Essentially what's happened is that it's stopped working and the usual sort of spinning sound of the disk in the hard drive has stopped and now makes a repetitive tzz tzz tzz sound that's relatively quiet. What i assume is that the data is all there and recoverable and that it's just some other mechanisms that have screwed up. What can I do?

Reply to
Jahan Penny-Dimri
Loading thread data ...

It might be possible to replace the motor driver chip, or swap the circuit board over from an identical drive. I've fixed a drive once by replacing a mosfet driving the motor but that was an old drive with discrete parts while most today use one big IC to do that stuff.

This is precisely why backups are so important.

Reply to
James Sweet

Reply to
Art

All good suggestions if the logic is the cause of his disk motor not working. His comment regarding the "Tzz, tzz, tzz" sounds a lot like it might be the heads sticking to the platters. If this is the case, a jarring of the drive into the palm of your hand while power is applied might free up the heads. Older drives encountered this type of problem frequently. It is true that newer ones encounter this less, but it might still be the problem rather than bad logic.

Reply to
Ken

Has the OP verified that the power supply is delivering the proper voltage/current to the drive? I have a Seagate 300 gig in an external case and the it will make sounds like the OP described if the 12 volt supply isn't of adequate current. I have a 12 volt 800ma and 2000ma supplies that look similar and tried to use the 800ma mistakenly with the drive and it made that noise.

--
Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker, June 2004

COOSN-266-06-25794
Reply to
Meat Plow

I remember a series of Samsung Drives, after about 1 mouth of operation, you didn't want to turn them off! other wise, you would have to bump the drive in side to get it to start up. I got my hands on a bunch of these defective drives (new) and had them put in servers, i found that if you kept them running for at least 4 months or so, they corrected them self's! something to do with the bearings not machined correctly in the platter.

--
"I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken"
Real Programmers Do things like this.
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jamie

Hi!

I think that's a good assumption. First, check your power supply to see that it is working properly.

If the power supply checks out, the hard drive is probably suffering from so-called "stiction" problems. Stiction happens when the drive's heads somehow adhere themselves to the platters and the spindle motor isn't strong enough to break the bond and start the drive. Gently shaking or rotating the drive casing while turning it on may solve the problem. Setting the drive casing in the sun or in a cool place (be very careful if you put it in the freezer--condensate forming on the drive platters as it warms up may really ruin things!) may also cause the heads to loosen up.

If the drive starts and runs, it may be fine. Still, it would be a very good idea to have another drive handy for backup purposes. If there is a failure, you may only get a few chances to read your data!

William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

Nah, I haven't seen this in drives made in the last 15 years or so. It took the old oxide coated platters to stick in any reasonable amount of time.

Reply to
James Sweet

Could be, but it is worth the try.

Reply to
Ken

Does anyone remember what brand hard drive it was?

--
#1 Offishul Ruiner of Usenet
Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker, June 2004
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Meat Plow

Sounds like the spindle's failing to spin up.

Maybe.

500GB sounds relatively recent for an external drive. Have you tried calling LaCie themselves? Their stuff is high priced & intended for non-technical people, so I'd hope that they'd provide good support in this sort of situation.
--
   W  "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
 . | ,. w ,      
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Lionel

Stiction /usually/ (not always) makes drive go "clunk!" on power-up, then stay silent. A repeated 'whirrrr' (with a rising, then lowering pitch) generally indicates a bad motor tacho sensor or unreadable servo data.

I used this method successfully a number of times back in the old MFM days, but the odds of it working are pretty slim with modern drives. If you've tried *every* other option unsuccessfully it's worth a try, but if it doesn't work, it'll likely ruin the drive permanently.

--
   W  "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
 . | ,. w ,      
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Lionel

The OP didn't say. (LaCie makes the box, not the drives) I used to most often see stiction on Seagates & Miniscribes.

--
   W  "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
 . | ,. w ,      
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Lionel

Good suggestion. (All my external drives use custom power sockets, so I didn't think of that possibility.)

--
   W  "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
 . | ,. w ,      
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Lionel

Hi!

Probably Seagate. I have 250 and 160 GB versions of these drives. Every one so far has been a Seagate on the inside.

William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.