Dead drive options?

Posted by: canuckInOR

Dead drive options? - 13/02/2007 19:50

Shortly before the move to Portland, my server crashed hard. I lost the drive with all the user accounts on it. It doesn't spin up at all, nor does it feel like it's even attempting to. The couple of machines I've tried it in have refused to boot further than the point where they attempt to recognize drives. Other drives spin up and are recognized using the same power and IDE cables, so I have a feeling that it's the circuit board on the drive that got toasted.

Of course, while some of the data was backed up, not everything that I want was. Oops.

So two questions:

1) Anyone have a spare Western Digital WD200 drive (or just the circuit board from one) kicking around that they could send my way? I'd like to see if swapping the controller boards will revive the drive.

Failing that:

2) Anyone have any recommendations for a data recovery service that isn't going to cost an arm and a leg?
Posted by: AndrewT

Re: Dead drive options? - 13/02/2007 20:07

There's a very good selection of cheap WD200s on eBay.com
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Dead drive options? - 14/02/2007 01:07

Apparently this place is pretty cheap. First he just uses GetDataBack, but if the drive doesn't spin up he tries replacing the circuit board, and failing that I believe they'll do the whole clean room thing. But I think it's cheaper than most at each stage.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 14/02/2007 19:37

Looks like I'll be hitting ebay, then. I just figured I'd see if anyone here had something, first. It's the Empeg BBS, how could I miss?
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 14/02/2007 19:38

Thanks for the suggestion. If I can't get the controller board swap to work, I'll give him a try.
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Dead drive options? - 15/02/2007 15:20

Are you in a rush?
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 16/02/2007 17:19

Not particularly. The drive died back in early December, while I was in the middle of getting ready to move to Portland.
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Dead drive options? - 17/02/2007 14:44

PM me your address and I'll send you a WD200 via UPS.
I don't recall the condition of this drive, but it was pulled from a GX110 or similar and has been gathering dust for some time.
Posted by: RobotCaleb

Re: Dead drive options? - 17/02/2007 20:33

Quote:
1) Anyone have a spare Western Digital WD200 drive (or just the circuit board from one) kicking around that they could send my way? I'd like to see if swapping the controller boards will revive the drive.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tg0Uli2_rwI

2:37 - about 4:40 in this video explains the board requirements. He later gives a timespan of ~2 weeks that you should look for in date of manufacture. ie. You should match the manufacture date of the new one to within two weeks of the old one.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Dead drive options? - 19/02/2007 01:24

Wow, very informative video.
Posted by: RobotCaleb

Re: Dead drive options? - 19/02/2007 04:24

Yeah, the whole series is great. "series"
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 19/02/2007 05:48

I can only echo Tony's sentiment. Highly informative... thanks for the link!
Posted by: AndrewT

Re: Dead drive options? - 21/02/2007 22:33

I've just been reading an article written by some Google engineers about drive failures. They use ordinary drives in their systems, exactly like the ones we use in our ordinary PCs.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Dead drive options? - 21/02/2007 23:20

Quote:
I've just been reading an article written by some Google engineers about drive failures. They use ordinary drives in their systems, exactly like the ones we use in our ordinary PCs.


And every bit as reliable as those expensive models that corporate data centers shell out for, too.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Dead drive options? - 22/02/2007 01:16

Quote:
I've just been reading an article written by some Google engineers about drive failures. They use ordinary drives in their systems, exactly like the ones we use in our ordinary PCs.

I really wish there were some way to find out which models lasted the longest. I understand why they wouldn't do that, though. Imagine an endorsement from Google for your hard disk line!
Posted by: gbeer

Re: Dead drive options? - 23/02/2007 17:10

Nothing in the paper said anything about postmortems. So there was nothing about why the drives died.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Dead drive options? - 23/02/2007 18:57

Quote:
Nothing in the paper said anything about postmortems. So there was nothing about why the drives died.

Odd, the Engadget article I read about this said that they did say why the drives died. They said it had less to do with heat and stress than might be expected, and more to do with manufacturer and model. Maybe they just didn't understand the paper. I didn't bother reading it myself. I started falling asleep after the first paragraph.
Posted by: gbeer

Re: Dead drive options? - 26/02/2007 00:01

Well I suppose simply saying the drive had read or write errors is one way of saying how the drives died. I was thinking more, of some description of the root mechanical failure. (coatings, contaminants, parts out of tolerance...)

But, I'd expect that only the maker would be equipped to diagnose that kind of thing.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 01/03/2007 17:58

Well, I tried swapping boards from the WD200 you sent (thank you!). It didn't fit (phooey!). Following advice of the video linked above (thank you!), I found a drive on ebay with a manufacture date about two weeks off mine. If that doesn't work, I'll keep hitting ebay, waiting for a drive that has a closer date.
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Dead drive options? - 02/03/2007 01:39

Maybe you can at least make a clock out of it.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Dead drive options? - 02/03/2007 03:48

More than likely, I'll end up putting it (and the other drives I end up getting while trying to fix this) up on eBay...

I suppose I could always use them to build a RAID, so that I don't have to worry about backups in the future.