From: Neon John <jgd_at_johngsbbq.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:18:19 -0400

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:54:51 -0400, "Mike Bartz" <mob_at_bartzfamily.net>
wrote:

>Hello fellow Rockboxers,
>
>This weekend, I managed to inflict some serious damage to my archos
>jbr v2. It was attached to a laptop via usb, and things moved just
>the wrong way and it was quickly detached and flung a little ways and
>landed hard on the tile floor. ouch!
>
>So, the poor little seagate HD tries and tries to work, but only
>manages to get the directory listing up on the screen after a lot of
>seeking noise. usb mode never seems to work. I'd love to be able to
>just plug it in once and copy everything off of it.

BTDT about two weeks ago. If the drive will initialize (it sounds
like it will) then SpinRite will probably bring it back. SpinRite
boots its own OS so the drive will have to be attached to the IDE
controller in your laptop or something equiv.

It sounds like just a little hunk of the surface got zorched by the
fall so SpinRite should actually repair the drive. I'd still get a
new one because the fuse is burning on that dropped drive.

Drop me a private email if you'd like more info.

>
>I know that there isn't much of a chance, but if anyone has any
>suggestions, I'd appreciate it. I have already tried the freezer
>trick, which I've used in the past with other drives that have died.
>This actually seemed to make it have more trouble spinning up. Any
>other ideas on how to rescue my data? I don't have the funds to send
>the drive out to a recovery service.

If freezing doesn't work, try the heat method. Wrap the drive in a
towel and let it warm up. Not too hot, though. And try positioning
it at various angles.

A couple of weeks ago I had the spindle bearing start grinding coffee
:-) in my laptop drive. A combination of the towel method and holding
it at juuuuust the right angle, vertical, canted at about a 20 deg
angle with a little bit of lean, let me get everything off it.

Ya gotta love Toshiba and their 3 year warranty. I went to their
warranty web site, inputted the serial number and in a second or two I
had an RMA and even an address label for the box. The replacement
should be here any day now.
>
>Makes me really look forward to the days when everything goes to
>flash-based drives. These spinning platters are so fragile!

Someday. Meanwhile the Toshiba drives I use seem to be pretty tough.
I have dropped mine probably 20 times before any damage was done. The
modern 100gig drive has another benefit besides holding everything -
it uses a LOT less power than the OEM drive. Almost 24 hrs with
32kbps audio books and 2500mah batteries.

John

---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Received on 2006-04-11