UPDATE on my Dead Hard Drive (was HELP ME PLEASE! MY HD'S DEAD!)
Mike Harris
First, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply either via the
newsgroup(s) and personal email. I have taken all advice seriously
(including the chastising regarding backing up important data - nasty, but
necessary).
To encapsulate my previous posting (below): I have a dead hard drive with 3
months worth of Autism research on it for the treatment of my 3 year old son
... I made semi regular backups (3 monthly), but we've been caught out big
time, and we're broke & desperate (just ask anyone down under how much
assistance you get from the government - three fifth's of bugger all ...
but, enough of that ...)..
The HD won't mount or even be recognised by all of Apple's System tools
(Profiler, 1st Aid, Drive Setup), nor via Norton's or Disk Warrior. It
spins, makes a few head seeking noises, and then keeps spinning without
mounting. The computer doesn't know it's there.
I've sent a few emails to Australian businesses nearby hoping they may be
able to help ... one local computer tech in Warragul (where I work) has
offered to try to recover it using bizarre but (seemingly) common sense
techniques. I'd like your thoughts:
He works with PC's but is a Mac owner/user (a good sign). He says that the
symptoms described could be a failure of the board on the HD, or (as I
understand it) the heads sticking (as opposed to the disk(s) - i.e.: I hear
the disks spinning, but it still could be a hardware problem).
He has had success with alternatively cooling (even freezing) and heating
HD's to contract/expand stuck mechanisms - with a 10%-ish success rate.
Sounds logical - what do you think? And (in reality) what do I have to lose
with according to 99% of responses, I've pretty much lost the data anyway
...
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated (I'll hang back taking the drive
in until I've collected a few email on the topic).
Please reply to mailto:miklo...@bigpond.com
Thanks in advance for any help (or even words of encouragement :)
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Miklos [mailto:miklo...@bigpond.com]
Sent: Sunday, 23 February 2003 10:51
Subject: HELP ME PLEASE! MY HD'S DEAD!
This is a *serious* cry for help ... if you have any advice, please
email me - <mailto:miklo...@bigpond.com>.
My hard drive is dead and - more important than the fact that this is my
computer - this computer is my wife's lifeline of communication to treat
my son.
This is the most important point - I have a 3 year old autistic boy
(Alex). My wife (Kelley) spends many hours a day doing research -
dietary interventions, applied behavioural analysis, social stories,
enzymes - see this weekends 'Weekend Australian' ... we're doing it all
(on a very meagre budget).
I backed up my iMac 3 months ago ... there have been hundreds of
documents, thousands of emails (she gets 100 a day from various lists
and groups she belongs to), many docs on toilet training, kinda, etc ...
all gone.
I've finally got my iMac up after wrestling with it since 10 this
morning.
To cut a long story short, my iMac DV (450mhz - OS 9.2.2) was working
fine ... I shut down, moved it literally 2 cm's, and it booted - but
refused to recognise the HD. System Profiler didn't see the thing.
I pulled the HD from my kids LC 630. The iMac recognised it. I connected
the iMacs HD to the 630 - nothing.
It has power, it spins - makes a couple of head moving noises, then
nothing.
I tried gentle percussive maintenance (in case 'sticktion' and
occurred). Nup. I consulted a learned techie friend - the fact the drive
has power & spins indicates the problem lies in the board on the HD.
My plea - what do I do now, and how can I do it on a next to zero
budget? I need to recover files on the HD (Fujitsu MPG3102AT).
If I have to take it to someone, how much am I looking at? Would a PC
tech be able to recover data from a mac formatted HD? HELP ME PLEASE!
I am desperate.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me - this news group has
come good for me in the past (in what now seem like trivial matters) -
now I need you guys more than ever.
Regards,
miklos
--
__________________________________________________________
| ._______/____. |
| |....../ | | Mike Harris
| |...0./ 0 | | ------------------------------------
| |.....|_ | | Gippsland
| |...\__|_/ | | Victoria
| |______\_____| | ------------------------------------
| \ | AUSTRALIA
Roly
wrote:
>G'day all
>miklos
On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 18:40:20 -0500, George <georg...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
(snip)
I need to recover files on the HD (Fujitsu MPG3102AT).
>>
This is a hardware (Hard drive logic board) problem, your bet shot is
to find someone with the same HDD, (still working) swap logic boards
and pull off the data to another drive.
Link to HP/Compaq version of events-
http://h30066.www3.hp.com/hddr/overview.asp?c1=8&c2=8&cc=us&lc=eng&action=L
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/28384.html good luck,
I've managed it.
(copied from my earlier reply) - PLEASE READ
Regards and good luck,
RoLY
Chris Brown
Industrial strength outfit, don't recall their name, had clean room facilities
etc, would dissemble the HD, remove the platters and refit into a functional
HD... cost was ca $800 or so/upwards
Chris Brown
Neurosurgery
University of Adelaide
Chris Brown
chris
Luke Maslen
"Mike Harris" <mha...@3gg.com.au> wrote:
> He works with PC's but is a Mac owner/user (a good sign). He says that the
> symptoms described could be a failure of the board on the HD, or (as I
> understand it) the heads sticking (as opposed to the disk(s) - i.e.: I hear
> the disks spinning, but it still could be a hardware problem).
Hi Mike,
I have no idea about the thermal technique but have known companies to
swap the circuit board with a fair degree of success. This is
OS-independant and so it doesn't really matter if a Mac or PC technician
performs this task for you as long as they don't expect the data to
appear if they connect the hard disk to a PC.
Good luck!
--
Regards,
Luke Maslen
epowermac
We have many old drives sitting here which like other people have suggested,
swapping the board over.
Just let us know what drive you have, model, size any info so we can match
it up.
A digital photo would be perfect.!!
--
--
Regards
Robert Zatta
Express Powermac Solutions
A.B.N : 29 312 503 161
Web - http://www.epowermac.com.au
E-Mail - sa...@epowermac.com.au
Tel - 07 5593 3403
Fax - 07 5527 7725
We accept B-Pay, Bankcard, M/C, Visa, Diners Amex, Prepayment, and
Educational PO's.
No surcharge for credit card orders!
All new memory products come with manufactures lifetime warranty.
All new products come with manufactures warranty.
"Mike Harris" <mha...@3gg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3e5a...@news.leadingedgeinternet.net.au...
Miklos
I won't quote myself - read the previous postings to learn of my
predicament. It's a doosie.
Again, thank you to everyone ... I've yet to come up with a solution,
(one is hopefully *very* close), but need to say a few 'thank yous'
first ...
* To Roly for persuing me with vital information on a problem with the
Fujitsu drive that died on me ... your tenacity may save the day!
* To Luke for recommending Ric at Metek Interstahl Pty Ltd in Melbourne
- these guys are great, and volunteered their help (and hopefully, I
won't need to take them up on their offer! :)
And to Jun at Fujitsu for compassion & assistance and hopefully coming
up with a solution.
Plus all those responding to this thread so far - Robert @ epowermac
(always helping someone on the news group - you're cool!) & Chris (I
admit, after your first post, I wanted to b*tch slap you, but your
follow up proved you were only kidding ;).
Just a quick update:
Roly sent me text of the sites he quoted in the email - short story -
follow those links if you have a Fujitsu 10 Gig HD (MPG3102AT). Bottom
line - they could die at any moment. Back up now.
On Luke's advice, emailed Ric who asked me to call him back.
Following Roly's lead, emailed Fujitsu Australia. Jun rang back straight
away (and this is the very good bit), and Fujitsu are sending me
*** A drive with which I can swap logic boards with! ***
This is so cool! I then spoke with an associate of Ric @ Metek ... they
are willing to help if I get stuck, but assured me that I should be
capable of swapping the electronics and recovering the vital data from
the dead HD.
So - fingers crossed ... the good drive should arrive soon, I'll suss
out how to swap the boards, I'll back up all the data on another mac @
home, and my wife will stop fretting over lost autism research.
Gotta admit - I feel good about being a part of the mac community today.
I know ther is still a good chance that the data is lost (guesstimate:
50 to 80% that it will all be fruitless), but it's not from lack of
trying on my part, or from those responding to my plea.
I hope you all *never* have to go thru anything like this in the future
- may your children be healthy & happy, and may your important data be
in a similar condition, backed up on other media :)
Regards,
Mike
epowermac
What type of backup system do you have in place???
CD-Burner or external FW Drive or nothing???
--
--
Regards
Robert Zatta
Express Powermac Solutions
A.B.N : 29 312 503 161
Web - http://www.epowermac.com.au
E-Mail - sa...@epowermac.com.au
Tel - 07 5593 3403
Fax - 07 5527 7725
We accept B-Pay, Bankcard, M/C, Visa, Diners Amex, Prepayment, and
Educational PO's.
No surcharge for credit card orders!
All new memory products come with manufactures lifetime warranty.
All new products come with manufactures warranty.
"Miklos" <miklo...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:miklos.mac-0D413...@news.bigpond.com...
Mike Harris
First, thanks for helping :)
"epowermac" <ne...@epowermac.com.au> wrote ..
> Mike
> What type of backup system do you have in place???
> CD-Burner or external FW Drive or nothing???
> Regards
> Robert Zatta
Here's the current scenario:
My daughters have my first colour Mac (an LC630). I stole the HD out of it
to put into the iMac DV when the drive died. My son has my 2nd colour Mac -
a Power Tower Pro 180 (PM 9600 clone). To that I have an external SCSI CD-R
(Matsushita 8X). I still have a working Mac SE (my first love ;), but no way
of connecting it to the other Macs.
I scored a discarded ethernet hub last year (from work after an upgrade).
Much to my wife's disgust, when it comes to backing up (every 3 months), I
roll out the cat 5, copy the data to the boy's clone, and burn a disc. It's
a pain, but at least it works.
This time the drive beat me to it. And, (I must shamefully admit) - having
had very few problems in the past, I'd assumed that things would be fine.
I did buy a Belkin USB to SCSI converter last year - but the drivers were
buggy. The logic (to justify the $100 expense to my wife ;) was that backups
would be more frequent if I could do them incrementally from the iMac, and
the blue cords wouldn't be all over the place. Unfortunately, the setup
(iMac -> USB/SCSI converter -> SCSI CD-R) kept freezing, crashing or just
stalling mid-burn. It wouldn't even work reliably with the UMAX SCSI scanner
I borrowed (on extended loan from my father-in-law).
It now lives in my box of discarded bits. Avoid them like the plague. I
wouldn't even give it away. If anyone has had success with them - I'd like
to hear about it.
My tactic in the future - I'll create a 650 MB partition on the HD that
eventually will live on the iMac. Every week, I'll copy it whole to another
Mac via ethernet (if I have both up (need another HD in the 630), I'll
alternate between them). Then I'll burn a disk a month.
I'll instruct the wife to save everything vital to that partition. Limiting
it to 650 MB means that I can easily burn an image from it, it's not too big
to transfer as a whole over 10bT ethernet, and if it gets full, I'll know to
do a backup immediately (as opposed to finding out all of a sudden that I
have to juggle 3 gig onto CD's somehow! :).
Robert, your question has forced me to think about the future, and I thank
you for that.
Hopefully, the dead HD will be resurrected long enough to copy the data.
That data (and the work that my wife will continue to do) will now have a
very good chance of surviving another crisis. She even suggested (last
night) that we send the backups to her mum in case of fire or theft!
Thanks for your thoughts and help - wish me luck!
Mike
epowermac
Reason for asking is we have a solution for you.
PTP180/ LC630 - Backup to CDRW or ethernet to iMac for external drive
backup.
iMac - Backup to FW/USB enclosure with 6Gb drive donated to the situation by
us.
If OK, we will organise delivery next week.
--
--
Regards
Robert Zatta
Express Powermac Solutions
A.B.N : 29 312 503 161
Web - http://www.epowermac.com.au
E-Mail - sa...@epowermac.com.au
Tel - 07 5593 3403
Fax - 07 5527 7725
We accept B-Pay, Bankcard, M/C, Visa, Diners Amex, Prepayment, and
Educational PO's.
No surcharge for credit card orders!
All new memory products come with manufactures lifetime warranty.
All new products come with manufactures warranty.
"Mike Harris" <mha...@3gg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3e5b...@news.leadingedgeinternet.net.au...
David
David
ann bishop
> I did buy a Belkin USB to SCSI converter last year - but the drivers were
> buggy.
My Belkin works fine.
Good luck with your drive the guys at Metek are always helpful.
--
annieb
Howard S Shubs
"Mike Harris" <mha...@3gg.com.au> wrote:
> I'll instruct the wife to save everything vital to that partition. Limiting
> it to 650 MB means that I can easily burn an image from it, it's not too big
> to transfer as a whole over 10bT ethernet, and if it gets full, I'll know to
> do a backup immediately (as opposed to finding out all of a sudden that I
> have to juggle 3 gig onto CD's somehow! :).
That will take a long time at 10Mb.
--
Today, on Paper-view: The World Origami Championship
StovePipe
> > G'day all
> >
> > First, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply either via
> the
> > newsgroup(s) and personal email. I have taken all advice seriously
> > (including the chastising regarding backing up important data - nasty, but
> > necessary).
<snip... see previous posting in this thread>
Howdy Mike:
If it was me, I'd approach Apple Computer at your end (in The Land of
Under) for help with both the hardware and special software. If they're
into donating hard/software to schools and etc., they should consider
helping you out. There are any number of educational applications for
kids, and there should be something for your 3 year old. Personally, I
wouldn't freeze the drive. I'd go to Apple and explain the situation.
It's worth a shot. Go for it man.
Cheers.
sp
--
Reply: take out the trash
Mike Harris
Interested to hear your Belkin USB to SCSI works fine - I'd love to get mine
going, but no luck with the Matsushita CDR or Umax Scanner that I own ...
Any hints on how you got yours to work reliably? I've downloaded the latest
drivers from Belkin ... was able to burn small sessions (say 16 MB), but
anything larger than that became a coaster :( The scanner made a few scans,
there required a restart of the machine! All in all, faster, easier & more
reliable to attach SCSI devices to an old mac!
To be fair to Belkin, they say it's not compatible with everything
(although) I found that out *after* purchase on their website ... hmmmm.
Anyway, thanks for your input!
Mike
"ann bishop" <anni...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:<1fr1g8b.fxmwmz158hlt1N%anni...@optusnet.com.au>...