can I repair 2 ext.hard drive or lose all the data ?

P

piazza2

Member
good morning everybody
how can I have 2 external hard drives repaired without spending thousands ?It seems everything can be repaired except for hard drives, WHY ????
1 maxtor 80 gb is probably my fault that it broke because I kept it running for weeks at the time ....for 3 years......and it was on the floor full of dust ( I didn't know then how to take care of them ) it makes erratics and different clicking sounds but it doesn't mount on the computer.............
the second is a 500gb LA CIE that was ON only when I used it ,it's 350gb full.
off the floor , no dust , but after 1 1/2 year it doesn't mount anymore,
when I turn it on the light is orange/red for several seconds before turning yellow and the sound alternates between silence and brief hissings , after a while is silent and doesn't seem to have any parts moving , can anyone suggest what are the problems and my possibilies of fixing them or having them fixed?
can they be opened and lubricated? maybe some parts dried up.
thanks
piazza2
 
Drives die for various reasons. Chances are simply lubing parts won't do any good. Typically the problem's with the heads, or sometimes with the actual board.

If you havn't already tried removing the drives and using them as internal drives, you may want to try that. From the sound of it, they're too far-gone for this, but it's a last-ditch effort.

If they won't work inside your computer, about all you could do is send them somewhere for data recovery. There's also the possibility of a platter swap, but the failure rate is extremely high. Plus you need identical drives to complete the swap.
 
what makes them brake so easy and why are not easy to repair?

what makes them brake so easy and why are not easy to repair?
 
picture a DVD that would scratch a piece of dust touched it, spinning for days and days on end at 7,200 rpm's. things get worn out. if you have a car, rev it for awhile n see what happens ;)

they are difficult to repair because they are so delicate once opened up. the disks cannot be touched, neither can the reading head, its all very sensitive.
 
how to use an external hard drive as internal after it broke as external

I'm glad you suggested this system of using it internally after it broke,I never heard of that before , so what is the procedure for that ?
I have a dell dimension 2300................the external hard drives are a maxtor 80gb........... and a LACIE 500gb.
one more thing , you guys are much smarter than me with computers , so which is your choice for external hard drives ? do you also burn all you data in DVDs or you always have double drives and double data ?
what about these new solid state drives ? will they brake as easy ? will they be easy to repair ?
thanks for any help you can give me
piazza2:confused:
 
The drives should connect like any other standard drive. Thought with your PC you might only have IDE. The 80GB might be IDE, but the 500GB could be SATA.

http://beacon.chebucto.ca/Mousepad/img/2007/IDE_SATA.jpg
(IDE on the left, SATA on the right)

Whatever... Pop the enclosures open. If it's IDE, set the jumper correctly. If you connect it along with your primary drive, set the other to Slave. There should be diagrams and all on the drive. Sometimes you even need to set the primary drive if a slave is present. Western Digital drives are notorious for being picky about master/slave configurations. Anyway, set the jumpers right then plug in the ribbon and power cable.

If it's SATA, there's really no settings required. Simply plug the drive cables in (power and interface) and you're probably good to go.

With both it may be a good idea to enter the bios/Setup (probably F2 on your Dell as it boots). Confirm the drives show up within the configuration.
 
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