Repairing *Fried* Hard Drives

[Mince&Cheese]

Hi,
Recently a friend had his computer wrecked by a power surge / lightning strike and nothing could be recovered. The hard drive was among the components destroyed so he lost a lot of information - entire mp3 collection, etc. :(
Now, if you try to put the drive in any machine, the power supply craps out and the machine won't start.
I know that data can be recovered by taking the dead drive to
Computer Forensics but who doesn't worry about what else they could possibly dig up :rolleyes:

Is it possible that only the interface card on the drive itself is fried and no other components of the drive are damaged and the interface card can be replaced or is the only option to chuck the drive out? :confused:

[MR_60]

It is quite possible that just the interface card is fried, yes.

So if you're lucky enough to have another of the same model drive around, then you should be able to (carefully) swap the board over and try your luck.

Note that you'll void your warrantee and there's a chance you'll damage your good board if there are faulty components in the drive.

[ktulu]

Originally posted by Mince&Cheese
Is it possible that only the interface card on the drive itself is fried and no other components of the drive are damaged and the interface card can be replaced [/B]
It's possible. Try finding someone with the exact harddrive and borrowing the circuit board (usually they just unplug from the drive).

Ps I take no responsibility if you end up wreaking 2 hdd's though.

[Mince&Cheese]

Thanks for your replies - I thought the same.
Just got off the phone to an American guy at Seagate. He doesn't really think it's worthwhile/possible/he won't be able to get me a new board.
Bummer!
The drive is a Seagate Baracuda ST340016A (40 gig) if anyone cares.

[Anarchy]

Same problem here, I fried my 20gig and cd drive and cd writer after dick smith decided to get the +12 and +5 in the molex diagram the wrong way round. I remember the was an article (can't find link, have to google it) where some chap had problems with his hard drive and switched components over. I don't think he was successful but I think he was dealing with the read/write head.

[ktulu]

Originally posted by Mince&Cheese
The drive is a Seagate Baracuda ST340016A (40 gig) if anyone cares.
I've got one of those lying around here... if you don't mind paying postage, you can borrow the controller card if you want want.
They're very easy to swap over and then, if it works, just copy the files to a new hdd.

[FKF]

To be honest, it doesn't even seem to matter if the drives are identical or not. We have many many 5-20Gb Quantum Fireball drives at work that fail due to a dodgy controller chip. We also have a working and reliable Fireball 10Gb and have used the circuit board from that on many others to retrieve data.

[Mince&Cheese]

Originally posted by ktulu
I've got one of those lying around here... if you don't mind paying postage, you can borrow the controller card if you want want.
They're very easy to swap over and then, if it works, just copy the files to a new hdd.

Hey, thats a wicked offer, talked to the dude about it but he's more worried about wrecking it and having to buy you a new drive and stuff.
Sounds like he's willing to move on and forget about the data he's lost and I don't really want to bug him - so it's kinda been a waste of my time looking around for him. :mad:

Thanks for the offer.

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