I Saw The Smoke Escape!

I learned a long time ago that the secret to electronics is keeping the smoke in the wires. Well, when my Maxtor died, I saw the smoke escape! It came from a little tiny surface-mount kajigger on the bottom of the drive. I just happened to have the drive rack out of the box while tuning my water set-up when I noticed a little wisp of smoke coming from the bottom of one of the drives (there are two in the rack, set up as a RAID-0). After that, I got the dreaded "click-click-click" when I booted the system. I hooked up that specific drive directly to the IDE port on the mobo to see if it could be recognized... no joy, biatch is dead. Well, not dead per se, but inaccessible. She still spins up. I hear her seeking, but she can't land on a file. So I'm thinking that that little surface-mount, tiny biatch could be replaced and life would be good, no? Anybody know of a service that can replace surface-mount components and save a hard drive? Did I mentioned this is half of a RAID-0 that I haven't backed up in a while (two months)?

either that or find the same exact hard drive and just swap the logic boards

lol what does the smoke do?

mista ting said:

lol what does the smoke do?

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No idea, but I know its bad to let it out.

As mentioned you best bet is to swap the controller off of the same HDD. If you didn't do anything to cause the drive to die, you could call the HDD manuf. and see if they can repair it for you, or send you the controller so you can do it yourself to save the data.

The only other way to save the data is to pay big $ and have it sent out for pro. data recovery.

OK, now what?!?!? I pulled the controller card off the good Maxtor and installed it on the bad Maxtor. She lives!! So now I can read one-half of a RAID-0. What do I do with it? I could ghost the whole drive somewhere, then ghost the other half somewhere, but how do I match them up as a RAID? As it stands, I can read one drive or the other, but not both at the same time. Is the only solution to find another controller card so that I can read both halves of the RAID at the same time?

{AG}Sgt.Stryker said:

Is the only solution to find another controller card so that I can read both halves of the RAID at the same time?

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Yes.

i suggest you get in contact with maxtor ASAP as long as it's under warranty i would suspect they would be willing to help as stated....and if they will only trade out for a new drive is there any possibility that he could copy the drive to the replacement drive then swap boards back with his other good drive and have a working raid again......? worse comes to worse you'll be stuck buying another hdd the exact same way, swapping out boards and doing it that way....but then of course if you kill an actual drive instead of a board you'll have a good running drive to replace it with

lol, thats what you get for buying maxtor


sorry man, that has to suck

shellshock said:

lol, thats what you get for buying maxtor

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I have to say that I've had nothing but good luck with Maxtors. This is the fourth rig I've set up with Maxtors and I've never had one fail. My main rig is still running with 2xMaxtors after at least four years with not a hiccup. I have to think that, for some reason, this particular Maxtor could not contain the smoke. I'll RMA it and see what happens.

buy a controller

look on ebay for that same drive. see if you can get one real cheap and just take the controller off it and put on your drive.
just a thought

paupton said:

look on ebay for that same drive. see if you can get one real cheap and just take the controller off it and put on your drive.
just a thought

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Great idea !! lol i dont know what all the hate with maxtor drives is ive installed atleast 10 in my comps and other peoples comp and they are all working great

Went to e-bay to see what I could find. There are a bunch of 20gb drives at 99 cents. They are the same model number (D740X-6L) as my 40gb drive. Anybody know if they use the same controller? There are a couple of 40gb drives, but they run from $15 to $23. It seems like if they are the same model number, they should use the same internals, but they come in 20gb, 40gb and 60gb capacities. I know that means they have differing numbers of discs, but does that mean they have different controllers?

My guess would be that the 40gb is just 2 20gb platters, and that the controller would be the same.

Best thing would be to get a close up picture, or any part numbers off the controller to compare.

Id still give it a go at $1, worst case, you can resell it.

If you had another 40gb HDD, you could ghost one to the other, and then swap controllers, and do it again. That involves buying a new HDD though.

Did you try and call maxtor and see if they would help you out? Thats where I would have started right off the bat.

Since I was able to swap controllers between the two Maxtors I have and was able to get the busted one to run, I thought the easiest solution was to buy another functional drive on e-bay and swap out the controller. I would be nervous about losing my data by sending the drive to Maxtor. I'm not sure the read/write heads are parked, and I don't trust Maxtor not to hose the discs while repairing the drive.

UPDATE!

Received the D740X-6L I ordered off E-Bay (brand new still in the sealed bag for $17!). Pulled the logic board off the new drive and installed it on my fried drive. Put the drive back in the box and fired up the RAID. BAM, baby! Got my RAID back just like nothin' ever happened! Life is good.

suh-WEET! ( ...I know...) Glad to hear it! I'll keep that in mind if a drive ever dies on my like that.