retrieving data from a bad hard drive

I have a quantum fireball lct 10g hard drive that I am fairly certain is fried. It was in my mother's computer (gateway pentium2) She said the computer asked her to reset the date and time and then the computer shut down, she couldn't turn it back on, she unplugged everything until I could look at it for her. When I plugged everything back up and turned it on, immediately I smelled something burning, I unplugged everything and opened the case no smoke or signs of any problem. But when powered up again the computer didn't recognize the hd. I replaced the hd and all was fine with the computer. I tired the hd in another system and same thing, computer doesn't see the drive, my question: is there a way to retrieve the data or is it forever gone???

 

that's what I thought, but I hoped that someone here might have a suggestion....maybe now she will listen to me when I tell her to back up everything.

 

wouldn't call myself any expert but yes I believe it was hooked up correctly. I believe it was toast, just wanted a second opinion. After reading some similar posts here I was hoping maybe there might be something I could do with it.

 

I would try hooking it up as a slave and see if you can pull the data off.
It can't hurt.

Good Luck
HH

 

If I was in your position and it was essential I would try to get an identical second hand h/d and swap the control circuit... It could be worth a try?

 

I agree with ollyk.

The disks do not burn. It most likely is a circuit board that fried.

Buy a used identical drive and replace the circuit board.

It should be cheap and you stand to lose nothing except the cost of the used drive and the time to take both apart.

If it's really needed, you'll earn BIG POINTS with the mother and at least get a big E for effort!

 

I may try that..that drive is a few years old though not sure other than ebay where to start looking. Never replaced a circuit board before, but I doubt I can make it any worse, and if I can do it, then I have learned something new, that's always good. Not to mention Mom would be really happy if I can get her picture files from the drive.

 

Its actually a very simple procedure and I have 100% confidence that once done, it will be classified as "a piece of cake ".

Now for the more difficult part. Ideally, you need to get as close a match as possible because there may be different manufacturing dates, different manufacturing locations, different firmware revisions and different models of the same drive, all of which may carry the same nomenclature as a quantum fireball lct 10g. You may get lucky on ebay but the objective is to find a good working drive thats as close as you can get to what you have. Do a Google search for used hard drives and you will come across locations that specialize in this business and will provide all pertinent information so you can get a controller that is "matched ".

 

Most of the internal components will usually "plug" together, or have tiny ribbon cables. If so, it's super easy.
In a worst case scenario, you may need a soldering iron and some solder, and some de-solder wick, but I doubt it.

Again, you've got nothing to lose, so why not!

 

will give it a shot as soon as I can locate a hd. Thanks for all the suggestions, sometimes knowing where to begin is the hardest part.