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Old May 23rd 18, 04:50 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
B00ze
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Posts: 472
Default Recommend data recovery company?

Good day all.

Finally took the drives out of the old PC. The one that won't calibrate
anymore, the spindle makes an awful whine, but it seems to spin OK (last
time I checked SMART, there were no spin-up errors.) It was really going
to die soon no matter what. So right now it kicks the heads back and
forth for 5 minutes before giving up. I swapped the controller board
with another of the same model, made the same day. Now the drive kicks 2
or 3 times and settles down, and makes those "I'm reading a sector"
noises. Unfortunately, it is not enough, it never really becomes ready
so it never appears in Windows (I am forced to use a USB adapter, I
might be able to access it on a real IDE PC). I'd maybe have to swap
that tiny ROM chip between the boards, but I do not like where it is
located, it's going to be a pain using a soldering iron and I'm afraid
I'll un-solder half the board if I use a heat gun (never tried that on
electronics, and I don't think now is a good time to try.)

Since I'm not sure what's wrong, I'm not going to attempt swapping the
heads between my 2 drives. If I mess-up, I won't even know, because the
problem could be something other than the heads. So I'll be sending it
away. Found a place with a fixed price depending on hard drive size.
Since this is a really small drive, the price is good. I'll give'em the
donor drive too. I will report back.

Best Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.

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