I left my Maxtor External Hard Drive behind my large guitar amplifier and now it wont

Legfend

There is a rather large magnet in the amplifier and as I was taking the hard drive out from behind it, it stuck to the back of it and now the hard drive will turn on and make its usual noises but it doesn't show up in My Computer or Device Manager or any data recovery software. The computer just doesnt "see" it. I also tried accessing it from my Linux partition but no luck there either. Can it be fixed? Its out of warrantee

Ghost Train

bold text isnt good

the vibration from the amp might have killed the drive

take it out of the case and connect it direct to a pc to test for sure

Legfend

Sorry about the text. There are no obvious screws or ways to open the drive, its this model:

http://www.globalelectricals.co.uk/images/MAX1TBBSC.jpg

Is it just a case of snapping it open? Theres a small rectagular shaped hole in the back beside the USB and AC ports but thats all i can see. Also I have a laptop not a pc, so how would i go about connecting it direct?

Edit: Just to re-iterate, the drive is spinning for sure and the power light is on.

Dampsquid

Obviously the magnet wiped all the data off the magnetic hard disk... I'd say there is no chance of getting the data back.

Khannie

It can be fixed, but you wont get your data back. You may be looking at low level formatting it though. In all my years using computers (a lot of years) I have never had to do that.

What does the kernel log (dmesg | tail -f) say when you plug in the drive in linux?

ricman

you,d buy a usb, sata enclosure 25 euro, take out the drive ,install in the unit, and plug it in to the usb laptop port.You,d probably have to reformat it in fat32 or ntfs.How old is the drive.Can you post a pic of the drive , where the power ,usb port is.
i presume the magnetic waves wiped the drive data from it.

wolfric

ricman wrote: »

you,d buy a usb, sata enclosure 25 euro, take out the drive ,install in the unit, and plug it in to the usb laptop port.You,d probably have to reformat it in fat32 or ntfs.How old is the drive.Can you post a pic of the drive , where the power ,usb port is.
i presume the magnetic waves wiped the drive data from it.

How does an external enclosure help? Do NOT open it up. This might void the warranty. Check online and see if it's under warranty and try get a replacement first. They'll let you do data recovery on it and they might very well let you open it up if you have to after they've verified it's broken.

ricman

i,m presuming its out of warranty ,warranty is 2 years under eu law on,tvs ,pcs ,pc peripherals.

wolfric

ricman wrote: »

i,m presuming its out of warranty ,warranty is 2 years under eu law on,tvs ,pcs ,pc peripherals.

That's minimum and the op never posted saying when he bought it. For all intents and purposes it could be a 1 week warranty and still be in date

ricman

if out of warranty ,its cheaper to open it up yourself.BE careful ,and gentle, hardrives are delicate.Disconnect the power first.All thats inside is a pcb, power unit, connected to a standard hardrive, by 1data, 1 power cable.I,M assuming its sata drive, it might be ide hd drive.
See here,pic,http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/tetherless/index.php/How_to_measure_power_on_the_Soekris_board put it on a pillow, or blanket when you are opening the case.

Viper_JB

Quiet a good chance you could have warped the shape of the platter - pretty strong magnets on that back of those either that or damaged the needle, it may still work but I wouldn't hold my breath. Try loading up partition magic or some other disk partioning tool and see if it can the disk.

Legfend

Wow, overwhelmed by the responses here. The main problem is that the hard drive was a present bought over a year ago and I dunno if the receipt was kept. I'll ask my gf if she still has the receipt and try returning it. None of the data was really important, just some movies I had already watched and some other bits and pieces so a straight exchange would suit me grand. Is there any point in getting that Sata drive or opening it up if I dont need the data? I just want to get it working again. Wont be able to do anything til Sunday coz I'm at a friends place and I left the drive at home.

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

After reading the title of this thread i was really expecting:

"I accidentally the whole thing...... the WHOLE thing"

But yeah, this sounds as if either the magnet in the amp or the vibrations have completely wrecked this drive.

ricman

SAY you go back to shop x, they may be able to look up the serial no on thier stock control pc,and verify it was bought say 15 months ago, eu law
says gaurantee is 2 years in any shop .Does it have a serial no,underneath on a label. i did this for a tv ,bought in dixons.

partyatmygaff

No way to get the data back I think. The magnets in a large guitar amp would pretty much annihlate any HDD's data especially if it came so close as to stick to the guitar amp.

The shock of it sticking to the side of the amp as well might have damaged the drive.

No way to get it working again barr doing a low level format

http://hddguru.com/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

Might take a while but if anything will bring the drive back to life it's that.