Hi HDD-Gurus,

my post is directed to those who have seen and heard many kinds of HDD failures and therefore can eventually make an educated guess about what type of failure might be the case for my harddrive.

My case: A Samsung 3,5" IDE HDD (Model SP2514N, Capacity 250GB, S/N: S08BJ10YB39722, production charge probably 11/2005). It was bought as an external USB-Harddrive "Trekstor DataStation maxi y.uh". I have been using it for 2 years very rarely (about one monthly backup) and has never suffered any physical impacts, in fact it has never been even moved from the desk.

What's wrong: When switched on, the drive won't spin up any more - it is audible that about once a second a spinup is attempted, but fails. My local IT guy's assumption is failure due to overheating - this type of drive would require active cooling, which it didn't have inside the external aluminum case (thanks Trekstor).

My question to you guys: Could you please listen to the attached zipped WAV-file, which is a recording of the spinup attempts. The louder "click"-sound at the beginning is the Switch-On sound of the harddrive, the following (amplified) clicks are the harddrive trying to spin up. My assumption is a died motor or burned out bearings.


My hope is that in case my assumption is right, my data should be recoverable. I am looking for a rather affordable way to recover my data (hundreds or Euros, but not thousands). Has anybody of the German gurus in this forum heard about http://www.xdatenrettung.de or can recommend any other affordable solution?

Your advise is strongly appreaciated!

Cheers
Florian

Hello that sound´s like´s a spindle problems. u should check the Log by terminal and post it here to check more detailed

Best regards from Mexico

Alberto

Hi Alberto,

thank you very much for your remark! Please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly do you mean by "checking the log by terminal"? Do you mean a DOS/UNIX-Shell, and eventually the Log from the startup script? What kind of error codes may we get from there if the drive is not recognized?

Since the drive doesn't spin up, it is not recognizes as a drive, therefore I can't check anything from my computer, at least to my understanding. I have to mention though, that so far I was only testing it with my laptop via USB, I haven't had a chance to connect it as an IDE to a Desktop, but I don't really see the point behind it. Can you enlighten me?

Best regards
Florian

Seized bearings.

Either stiction (very unlikely, unless the drive had been knocked whilst powered on) or, more likely, plain bearing seizure.

Good luck - but don't try a home-grown solution.

Duncan

Log its a a infomation generated by HDD, when knock, when not start, etc from the start up to any situation to analyze it decode and take actions, needs a special adapter called terminal adapter

Bes Regards

Could be either bearing seizure, heads not parked properly, incorrect motor driving.
I endorse the statement : no home-grown solutions.