seagate 720gb, is it unsavable?

[slurch901]

hey all,

My seagate 720gb external hdd recently started screaming and is not reconized by my laptop, ive tried to freeze it to see if that worked but no luck.
I was wondering if there is anything I can do to get the information from it, as it has alot of important stuff on it.

thanks all.

[BlackST]

What do you mean "screaming" ?

[slurch901]

It is spinning way faster than usual rate.

[BlackST]

Drive needs to be serviced. The nearest reputable pro in UK is pcimage from this forum.
Otherwise, you have a wide choice in Europe.

[slurch901]

Is there nothing I can do it fix it?
Im in a remote location for quite some time and unable to get to any of these places.

[BlackST]

No. Unless you want to make things worse or put data at risk. If you want to do so, the net is full of bullsh... ehm, ideas . But you said that data is important.

P.S. the location may be remote, but I know for sure that royal mail and UPS work fine in UK....

[poehere]

hey all,

My seagate 720gb external hdd recently started screaming and is not reconized by my laptop, ive tried to freeze it to see if that worked but no luck.
I was wondering if there is anything I can do to get the information from it, as it has alot of important stuff on it.

thanks all.

If you really want your data this one was a very bad move. You never put your HDD in a freezer to try and freeze it.

Stop what you are doing. If you can not afford to send this to a compnay like pcimage for a free examination of this HDD put it away until you can. Other wise get a new drive and live without your data.

[fzabkar]

Is there nothing I can do it fix it?
Im in a remote location for quite some time and unable to get to any of these places.

If your drive really is spinning too fast, then try replacing the PCB. If the speed stabilises, then you will need to transfer the serial EEPROM chip from patient to donor.

However, before replacing the PCB, compare the resistances of the motor terminals. That should tell you if one of the three windings is out of order. Use a digital multimeter on the 200 ohms range.

BTW, I'm not a DR guy, but I'm having difficulty understanding how a drive could spin too fast. The windings are driven by the motor controller chip, but they also provide the RPM feedback. If there were something wrong with the speed sensing, then there would be something wrong with one of the windings (or its MOSFET drivers), which in turn would suggest that the motor wouldn't spin. :?

[buster80]

pcimage

[drc]

It is spinning way faster than usual rate.

What.

[dobrevjetser]

I guess that "screaming" is the sound of the heads touching the magnetic layers.
Its not spinning faster, just making more noise.

Dobre