Dead drive

[Rudders]

I have a 2.5 gig hard disk.

It was working ok, then I connected it to a different pc and it was not recognised by the BIOS. Only the green LED on the Disk circuitry would flash, wouldn't even spin up at all.
Now not even the LED works! No ther machine now sees it either.
What do you think is wrong, and why do the data recovery agencies charge way too much for the recovery of them?

Anything I can do myself...I am quite tecnical on everything else to do with PCs!

Rudders

[Garak]

ok, was the drive correctly configured ie master / slave?

What kind of system did it come out of, what kind of system is going into? does it use DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay) software? Are all the cables in the correct way / pressed in firmly?

These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head. BTW, correct way for an IDE cable is the red strip matches with the red power connectory (usually to the right of the drive).

[Ruslan]

Double check all the connections - may be you have inserted the interface cable backwards - it can explain the problem, especially if you're using 2,5"-to-3,5" IDE converter...

Also... I've seen quite a few times 2,5" drives (mostly Seagates) refused to work being installed in another PC...

By the way, what exactly the HDD model?

[arokh]

Originally posted by Rudders
I have a 2.5 gig hard disk.

It was working ok, then I connected it to a different pc and it was not recognised by the BIOS. Only the green LED on the Disk circuitry would flash, wouldn't even spin up at all.
Now not even the LED works! No ther machine now sees it either.
What do you think is wrong, and why do the data recovery agencies charge way too much for the recovery of them?

Anything I can do myself...I am quite tecnical on everything else to do with PCs!

Rudders

The only thing that comes to mind knowing that putting it back into the original computer makes it not work is that you somehow damaged the drive. It could have been ESD (electro-static discharge) and no, you don't even have to feel a shock to damage a component, or the IDE cable was keyed and if you put it in backwards, it broke one of the pins, or pushed it through the PCB (I've seen it happen). The reason recovery companies charge so much, well it's expensive work that they do. Albeit they probably charge more than they should, because they can basically charge you whatever they want, and they know you'll pay it because you want your data back. It does take a certain overhead cost with the clean rooms they need to use, properly trained personel, highly sophisticated machines to extract data off good platters, etc. When we had a fatal point-of-sale machine HDD crash, we sent it to ontrack, they charged us about $300 for the diagnostics, and if it was recoverable, they would have charged us $1500 I think. Which isn't too terribly much, I've seen a lot of companies charge a lot more (7k plus!). Short of paying someone to recover your data, you might get lucky shopping the used components stores and finding the exact same HDD that you have, taking the electronics out, swapping them, and seeing if it works. On some drives you can swap the electronics without opening the platter cover, so make sure your drive is capable of doing so. Once you open the platter cover, it's all over for your data. I guess it's worth a shot, a 2.5gb HDD should only cost about $20 used