hard drive repair 1

[littlemill]

Is it practical moneywise to mechanically repair a hard drive? If so where can I get the know how?

Last week my 60 gb WD 600 on my backup computer went down. Their diagnostic tool gave a code, which their support group said was truly defective. System and drive were out of warranty, so I just bought another drive after establishing that one of my reduntant drives brought the computer back online. Data loss was not an issue in this case.

Have tried a few of the tricks mentioned in various posts here, with no luck, so conclude it must be mechanical damage. It will not format nor can I write xeros using the WD diagnostics manager

Was manufactured in june 2001, seldom used, and I am reluctant to throw it away.

Yes, I am a Scot. I still have all the hard drives from previous computers and they are still all functional.
Thanks

 

[Snickle]

The biggest problem outside of getting the parts is that the drives are assembled in 'clean rooms' to preclude the most minute speck of dust inside the works, which would eventually cause the drive to fail. Other issues would be electronic problems with the interface/circuit board on the drive, bearing failure, voice-coil relay failure.

 

[edfair]

Earlier drives suffered from "stiction". Lubricant on the platters would cause the head to stick to the platter, overcoming the motor's torque. So the motor wouldn't crank the drive up. And it caused failure more often on drives seldom used.
Solution was revolving the entire drive in the same plane as the platters and abruptly stopping rotation with the heel of the hand. Platters would break free.
Unless you have a large volume of drives to work on the expense of spares for parts will be excessive. And unlike the early 80s, there isn't any component repair on the controller board. Mix in the ugly habit of manufacturers making minute changes from production run to production run and you'll recognize that it isn't worh it unless you have critical data, and even then a professional recovery company should be involved. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
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