Hard Drive breakdown, Recovery?

[LOKIDOG]

I have a Maxtor 90 Gig hard drive that has failed. Everything was fine with the setup and everything. Then I replaced my second hard drive (a 30 Gig) with a new 200 Gig drive so I could backup everything easiliy. Well, in the process, my 90G drive with everything on it failed. It will not run - completely stopped. I know it's not corrupted, rather it's a mechanical failure of the motor or a short of the electronics, or something on the circuit board that is preventing it from running. It corresponded with a power supply problem.

The question is what can I do now? Can any repair be done? If I have to go with a data recovery service - Which one?

Please help - the data is invaluable, unfortunately I'm not wealthy. It's ironic that the very instigation of this failure was my trying to provide a backup system for my data!

 

[satrow]

There is a possibility, if the problem lies in the circuit board, that you could replace it with a board from an identical drive.

Andy.

 

[LOKIDOG]

I checked with a local 'Computer Guru' who said that the drives are serial number protected and that this can not be done with these drives anymore. But I'm not sure about this answer - please feel free to comment!

 

[satrow]

I've not heard of that, LOKIDOG, perhaps he's after a sale?
Next time I order a pair of drives in, I'll try it and report back!

Andy.

 

[LOKIDOG]

He doesn't sell drives. I may be misinterpeteing what he told me. He said that the older smaller drives were easier to deal with and replace the electronics on. He told me that this drive will need to be put in a clean room and the platter transferred to a 'reading machine' and it's data put on another drive or other media. He may be wrong - other suggestions are welcome!

 

[satrow]

We're talking replacing the logic board, not the components soldered to it; a few screws and a 'cable' clip or two to undo. A clean room is a stage or two further down the line!

Andy.