Maxtor Diamond 80GB Drive RIP

[laserblazer]

One of the teachers has had her HD die on her. Needless to say, she hasn't kept it fully backed up and there's data on it that will cause the world as we know it to end if it can't be recovered.

 

The drive simply isn't firing up. I'm currently imaging another machine which has the same model drive and I'm hoping I might be able to change the board and get it going again. Has anyone done anything similar and can offer me some advice?

[Sirbendy]

freezer it. Bag, freezer, 30 minutes, plug in and try it.

 

Did one that would run if kept icy cold...that was fun. Not. Combination of spray freeze on the PCB, and IDE-USB adapter with a long extender, leaving the drive in a chest freezer for the duration.

 

After which we played football with it.

[plexer]

Yeah don't change the board.

 

It should have been backed up end of story, the school can pay for data recovery if it's that important.

 

Ben

[difinity]

I think as long as the drives are identical, and have matching firmware, then you have nothing to loose and everything to gain. It's worth a try, especially if the drive isn't being recognized. I thing the freezer trick only works with drives where the spindle has seized.

[CESIL]

I would agree that the board swap is worth trying.

 

I did this a few years ago when a server HD died and I discovered that my predecessor had disabled disk mirroring!

[elsiegee40]

Try the freezer trick first, but take care to avoid condensation!

 

Board swap is worth a try... if that fails, I'm afraid it's about £500 for a company to attempt recovery.... Does the school pay for the teacher's errors...?

[sparkeh]

Does the school pay for the teacher's errors...?

 

Very good point and very useful to clarify in an AUP.

Ours states that teachers are responsible for creating their own backups on the server, if not then they are liable for any recovery costs.

[BatchFile]

Does the school pay for the teacher's errors...?

 

One way or the other, yes!

 

Either short term (getting the data recovered) or longer term (teacher being paid for time to recreate lost work)

 

I had this a while ago (http://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/29022-pe-dept-technology.html) and the teacher's department's capitation is footing the bill:cool:

Edited May 19, 2009 by BatchFile

[laserblazer]

I think if it came to owning up and asking for £500 the data would suddenly lose its importance! Great advice on the freezing because it looks like it was heat related as I just managed to fire it up and it's imaging now (fingers crossed).

[Batman]

Try the freezer trick first, but take care to avoid condensation!

 

Board swap is worth a try... if that fails, I'm afraid it's about £500 for a company to attempt recovery.... Does the school pay for the teacher's errors...?

 

I would say the opposite, if you get condensation it will fubar the drive; it's a risk, so DON'T put your drive in the freezer unless you have exhausted all other options. Once you get to that point there's nothing you can do anyway so you may as well try it.

 

What I would try first would be to let it cool down to room temperature, and put a fan on it when it's running. Sometimes faulty drives don't work when hot but will allow you to remove some data while they're still warming up.

 

The boards on these drives are likely to be identical from one drive to the next, there's no problem with firmware in these cheap drives because that's usually stored on the platter (which is one of the things that breaks them sometimes).

[tmcd35]

I'd ask the teacher why the data was on the drive in the first place and not in his/her folder on the network. If the data's gone it's gone. Changing drive board or putting them in freezers is way beyond the call of duty in these cases IMHO.

[Batman]

Now that just gets me annoyed . I'm sure if depends on your job description, but surely the "call of duty" is to serve the school/employer to the best of our ability? Swapping a board doesn't take much, if that's your idea of hassle then I have to wonder what you actually do!

 

If a user doesn't backup their data and we can't get it back then it's just tough, but it doesn't mean we won't do our best to get it back. It's not like it happens every week. I consider myself to be in a privileged position in being able to help people who would otherwise leave the computer unplugged and unused. The attitude that an awkward but reasonable request like this is "above the call of duty" is what makes people think that we, in our profession, are lazy, ignorant and unhelpful. If you're not a people person then IT support is the wrong job for you.

[laserblazer]

Well she's a happy bunny again now and knows the importance of backing up. She has a new Caviar drive in place of the Maxtor and reckons the system is soooo much faster. I suppose if the drive was on its way out she could be right.

[synaesthesia]

Probably the typical Maxtor fault. Tried seeing if it works using a linux liveCD or something?

[laserblazer]

Probably the typical Maxtor fault. Tried seeing if it works using a linux liveCD or something?

 

Once it had cooled down it worked ok but it has now been consigned to the bin.

[Batman]

... where it belongs!!

 

Do you zero fill your drives for security before you chuck em'? It's definitely worth doing. Well, it's essential really, if you don't want anyone to get your data! Check out killdisk or dban, they're on the ultimate boot cd.

[tmcd35]

Now that just gets me annoyed . I'm sure if depends on your job description, but surely the "call of duty" is to serve the school/employer to the best of our ability? Swapping a board doesn't take much, if that's your idea of hassle then I have to wonder what you actually do!

 

If a user doesn't backup their data and we can't get it back then it's just tough, but it doesn't mean we won't do our best to get it back. It's not like it happens every week. I consider myself to be in a privileged position in being able to help people who would otherwise leave the computer unplugged and unused. The attitude that an awkward but reasonable request like this is "above the call of duty" is what makes people think that we, in our profession, are lazy, ignorant and unhelpful. If you're not a people person then IT support is the wrong job for you.

 

I think if you've read any of my previous posts on customer service you'd know that generally I'd agree with you and would gladly do what I can to help any colleague out.

 

But in these cases there has to come a cut of point when you say - 'the drive is dead and the data is lost'. It frustrates me how much teachers rely on their hard drives and worse USB Pen Sticks instead of using their network home folders (which I make regular backups of) and the VLE.

 

Losing valuable data and the importance of regular backups is a nasty lesson to learn but one that EVERY computer user at some point has to learn. For me it was storing the only copy of my GCSE Computing BBC Basic program on a floppy disk.

 

Putting any computer part in the freezer is not my idea of computer repair and is beyond the scope of my job.

 

If the data is so valuable then the drive should be sent to a professional for data recovery. Anything that I do like changing boards or freezing the unit that could jeopardise the data is bad practice.