So a few days ago my computer went kaput. The hard-drive cannot be read. Trying to turn it on, you will hear a few clicks, then a cut out. I have put some images in the thread. As you can see, the burn damage is quite obvious. The guy at Staples thinks that the hard-drive itself could be damaged, but to retrieve the information would be quite costly (As in, send the hard-drive to some company that will individually attach to each port and retrieve information costly). My question to you, seeing the damage in the pictures, would it be possible to buy a new hard-drive and transfer the information cheaply? Or is his word true, and it's dead.
My grandfather in all his genius decided to try to scratch the burn off, hoping that it would work. Those are the scratches. The burns themselves are... burns.
Salvageable Hard Drive?
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germloucks
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Nope, there isnt much you can do without special tools and know-how. If the data was valuable, it may be worth it to send it in to the professionals who can recover the data. Its not as costly as it used to be, but i wouldnt recommend it unless there was must-have data on there. (which would beg the question of why you didnt have a backup)
Otherwise, suck it up and buy a new harddrive
Sorry dude!
EDIT: Also its not clear, even with the pictures, where the burn/scratch damage is on the board. The staples guy DID try to plug it into a different computer and attempt to boot it up, right?
With bricked harddrives people usually get errors like "unmountable boot drive" or something similar, it sounds like from your description that your computer is not passing POST which may indicate a larger issue. Its also strange that there was burn damage, although again i cant seem to find it on those pictures.
So, a few questions are in order.
1) When you power on your computer, does anything come up on your screen? The BIOS should come up at the very least, since that data is contained on your motherboard not your harddrive. If you are not getting anything that could mean a few different - probably worse - things.
2) Try attaching the harddrive to another computer and seeing if you can boot off that drive. You can do it a number of ways, easiest is to remove the original hard drive and plug in the suspect one. Document what happens, and any error messages you get.
Otherwise, suck it up and buy a new harddrive
Sorry dude!
EDIT: Also its not clear, even with the pictures, where the burn/scratch damage is on the board. The staples guy DID try to plug it into a different computer and attempt to boot it up, right?
With bricked harddrives people usually get errors like "unmountable boot drive" or something similar, it sounds like from your description that your computer is not passing POST which may indicate a larger issue. Its also strange that there was burn damage, although again i cant seem to find it on those pictures.
So, a few questions are in order.
1) When you power on your computer, does anything come up on your screen? The BIOS should come up at the very least, since that data is contained on your motherboard not your harddrive. If you are not getting anything that could mean a few different - probably worse - things.
2) Try attaching the harddrive to another computer and seeing if you can boot off that drive. You can do it a number of ways, easiest is to remove the original hard drive and plug in the suspect one. Document what happens, and any error messages you get.
Last edited by germloucks on Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Laptop hard drive? If not I cannot figure out what those pins are. If so it will be god-awful expensive.
Can't really see the burn damage, it helps if you circle what area you are mentioning in a high contrast color.
I've heard stories of freezing hard drives but I don't think this is one of those situations where it's supposed to work and even then its temporary.
(If it's for a laptop) I'd check e-bay for a compatible one, you will find it there cheapest I think.
Can't really see the burn damage, it helps if you circle what area you are mentioning in a high contrast color.
I've heard stories of freezing hard drives but I don't think this is one of those situations where it's supposed to work and even then its temporary.
(If it's for a laptop) I'd check e-bay for a compatible one, you will find it there cheapest I think.
The burn damage is on the 2 little squares and on those little pill shaped things. It's all over the madness. This is actually to a desktop emachine. We thought about getting a new hard-drive, at least the computer would work. The information isn't truly necessary, just would be nice to have.
A hero is not one who never falls, but one who gets up again and again, NEVER losing sight of one's dream!
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Bard
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HAHA.HJ_KG wrote:QUOTE (HJ_KG @ Jun 17 2011, 07:07 PM) http://www.hdd-parts.com/10110510.html
Beat me to it!
Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit.-
Bard
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I've done it before many times (since typically corporate locations order large batches of the same part(s))Elzam V. Branstein wrote:QUOTE (Elzam V. Branstein @ Jun 17 2011, 08:47 PM) Thanks for the help guys. We're going to try the gamble on the circuit board. Wish us luck!
Just be gentle and careful, especially with the extremely fragile very thin gauge wires that connect the controller card to the rest of the drive.
Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit.
