External Hard drive help please

[Midnight12]

It was supposed to be a Maxtor One Touch 500gig external hard drive. with SATA interface
but when hubs opened it up (broke the shell) when the usb connection failed the manufacturer said Seagate. which i guess doesn't make much difference.

The issue is this. whatever happened to it he hooked it up using the USB and it beeped every 5-10 seconds. so he tried to break the shell off take it from the power supply and connect. thats when he found its has a SATA interface. ok so when he got the IDE to SATA connector to hook up to his comp same thing, beep noise every 5-10 seconds. is it well and truly dead?

If so this is sad because there are pictures on there of which there are no physical copies and are very important. otherwise the rest of the programs on there are replaceable but the pics are not

honestly i refuse to accept that it is dead..

[Daskinor]

I am just a little confused.

External drive stopped working, made a beeping noise.

Opened the case to remove drive.

Used a Sata to IDE adapter to connect to computer

Made the same noise


A) how old was the unit

B) Did you move it around before if failed

[Midnight12]

sorry forgot to do the damage report. yes it got knocked around alot. hubs had it connected to the laptop alot and i kept tripping over the usb cord which knocked it over on its side and until now it would work.

it looked like this
just like this
it got abused but we made sure the files were intact each time except for the last few times.
the last time he plugged it in instead of powering up it beeped. THEN he tore it open.

going to say about 3-5 years old now as he had it before i came along

[roothorick]

Maxtor doesn't exist as a company anymore -- Seagate bought them out in 2006. It's Seagate's "budget" brand now. Finding a Seagate part inside the shell, today, doesn't surprise me at all.

Hard drives don't beep. They don't have piezoelectric buzzers to beep with. That noise has to be coming from the heads or platters, and I would think it would resemble more of a screech, which would be one of two things:

a) A bearing sticking and getting shredded by the spindle motor (Back up all data and replace soon!)
b) Heads scratching the platters (D.O.A.)

[Midnight12]

this is what hubs says when it has power coming to it, and its just the hard drive not the whole thing so i don't know. well at least now i know about the company

will show him this thread thank you

Update:

This is Hubs here's the deal.

I've had the hard drive for roughly 3 years have had no problem with it whatsoever, until recently whenever I plugged the power connector to the drive it will beep once every 15 - 20 seconds. The computer will not see a drive at all. I figured it was the outer shell malfunctioning so I took the case off of it to realize it was a SATA interface device unfortunately the computer is only IDE so I put the hard drive up properly so no static electricity, drops, nor magnets could happen. After ordering a SATA to IDE interface device I tried the hard drive again only this time as an internal not external. After the computer turns on it still gives me the beeping issue and no hard drive popping up. It's not a screetch but the beep sounds like when the computer first turns on but is having a keyboard issue type beep. Before you ask it was only the hard drive beeping not the computer and the computer itself loads fine.

[Daskinor]

Sounds like a stuck platter, but without holding it while it powers up or listening to it I can not be sure. This is one of those instances where you need to know what you are dealing with from experience.




Now the question is, does it have data your REALLY need to recover.

[Daskinor]

Wait does the drive make a clicking sound then beeps?

[roothorick]

I've had the hard drive for roughly 3 years have had no problem with it whatsoever, until recently whenever I plugged the power connector to the drive it will beep once every 15 - 20 seconds. The computer will not see a drive at all. I figured it was the outer shell malfunctioning so I took the case off of it to realize it was a SATA interface device unfortunately the computer is only IDE so I put the hard drive up properly so no static electricity, drops, nor magnets could happen. After ordering a SATA to IDE interface device I tried the hard drive again only this time as an internal not external. After the computer turns on it still gives me the beeping issue and no hard drive popping up. It's not a screetch but the beep sounds like when the computer first turns on but is having a keyboard issue type beep. Before you ask it was only the hard drive beeping not the computer and the computer itself loads fine.

Again, hard drives can't beep. What you're hearing is the screeching of metal on metal at very high RPMs.

1) SATA hotplug is unreliable, and IDE doesn't hotplug period. You turned the computer off, hooked up the drive, THEN turned it on, right?
2) Check jumper settings on your SATA-IDE adapter. Make sure slave-master is set right. The adapter may have a "single" setting separate from master/slave; check that. Try it as master with a slave drive hooked up, just to be sure. (Make sure the computer is OFF when changing jumper settings.)

If after all that, go into the BIOS and see if the drive is present there. If the BIOS can't see it, seatools won't, and the drive is long gone.

[Midnight12]

stares dumbfounded....i used to know this

will get hubs to reply in the morning as he is asleep until work. he be the hardware guy
the only really important thing to get is pictures past that the rest is replaceable....

hope i am not breaking rules by letting him post on my account but only for here and while i am there with him

[Andara Bledin]

Again, hard drives can't beep. What you're hearing is the screeching of metal on metal at very high RPMs.

Actually, based on just a quick Google search and a visit to YouTube, it looks like Maxtor drives really do have some sort of beep code, which can indicate anything from not enough power to an inability to unlock the platters.

In most cases, if you really need what was stored on the drive you'll want to look into recovery services.

^-.-^

[Daskinor]

Yea they can sounds like a cell phone melody, its so you can find a drive that has failed easy.

Ok after talking to my computer deity he told me this.

Maxtor drives,

Cell phone melody, Stuck spindle

Single beep every 1.5 seconds with or without a soft click, bad head

reference http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Both cases you are shelling out 500$+ for a professional hard drive recovery.

[Der Cute]

Not always is there an expensive recovery.

One of my drives died, with all the pics on it.

I got it started up after praying to all the gods, and ran some software - it counts bits and finds patterns. I got a lot of stuff back.

Email me if you want to know.

[RestaurantDude]

RestaurantDude's Guide to the Poor Man's HD Recovery

This should only be attempted as a last resort, and only if you do not intend on sending the drive out for professional data recovery. You have been warned.

This technique is designed to allow you to recover the data from a harddrive that has suffered from a spindle bearing failure. It will not help you if the cause of your harddrive failure is something else. It also has the potential to further damage the harddrive, if not done properly. THIS will VOID any WARRANTY you may have on the drive! Again, you have been warned.


This procedure has worked for me several times in the past, and is the de-facto standard of stuck spindle recovery at one particular vintage Mac website.

**************
* You will need *
**************

- The harddrive itself
- A zip-lock plastic baggie. Has to be a zip-lock or other sealable plastic baggie.
- A way to quickly hook the drive up to a computer. A USB adapter, or similar, is recommended.
- A computer (d'uh!)
- All the appropriate cables and such.


***************
* The Procedure *
***************

Please read entire procedure before beginning.

1) Remove the hard drive from your computer.

2) Stop what you are doing and re-read the red and orange warnings at the top of this page.

3) Make yourself a cup of coffee / tea, drink it, and while doing so reread both warnings again, while contemplating their meaning.

4) Place the bare harddrive in the plastic baggie, remove as much air as possible, and seal the bag.

5) Place your bag in the freezer for no less than one hour. This will cause metal components to contract slightly, freeing up the stuck spindle bearings, and allowing the platters to rotate.

6) After a minimum of one hour has passed, remove the drive from the freezer. Remove it from the bag, use a dry soft towel to gently remove any condensation from the circuit board on the bottom. Quickly install the harddrive in your machine, before it has had a chance to warm up too much (i recommend having a laptop in the kitchen). If it mounts, grab as much off it as you can, as quickly as you can.

As an aside, i have also seen people use a modified version of this technique, qith power and USB leads running INTO the freezer. This may be more successful, but carries a slightly greater risk of shorting out the drive's control circuit (and possibly your USB / FW controller in your computer) due to condensation.

7) You may repeat this procedure several times if needed, should the drive warm up and re-lock before you get everything off of it, but be aware that every hot/cold cycle brings with it the possibility of permanently ruining the drive.



LEGAL: Neither RestaurantDude nor CustomersSuck.com is responsible for any damage resultant to using this technique that occurs to your computer, harddrive, freezer, cat, dog, boat, car, airplane, hovercraft (with or without eels), sex life, television, printer, sonic screw driver, or anything in your naughty drawer.

[Daskinor]

stuck spindle is an easy diagnosis. It does not spin up like a normal hard drive would makes little noise and wont vibrate. I have heard of the freezer trick along with giving it a rough firm hit while off to free it up. Sometimes you can even open the drive and free the stuck head with some gentle prying from a jeweler's screwdriver.

A bad head is the worse case scenario. The only solution for that is a processional recovery. They basically need to remove the head assembly and replace it out of an identical drive. Requires exact parts, tools, knowledge and skills.

[Midnight12]

finally got around to getting hubs to read all the posts.
will see about getting a jewelers screwdriver and have him put the hard drive away for now before attempting anything as the next chance he has time to do it is next week. but thank you very much for this advice. not going to do anything yet