Are hard drives fixable?

My new WD3200 (black) I bought on Amazon is working fine. I'm leaving untouched the WD1600 (blue) that came with the computer since it serves as my back-up disk in case the 320 fails. For an additional back up I bought a WD1600 Black Scorpio on eBay for total of $28 and it powered up fine but when doing the disk duplication it failed. It now starts up, starts spinning, then shuts down after 5-10 seconds. I have it in a USB enclosure and also tried it in the Ultrabay. Same thing both places. The eBay seller had a 3-day return policy and it ran fine when I first got it - so looks like I lost this little gamble - unless it can be taken apart and fixed.

Looking into the subject I see there are ways to get a faulty hard disk to work temporarily - freezing, tapping on the top (to release stuck heads), and some other ideas but all of these are designed just to get the disk going long enough to get data off of it. What I'm wondering is if it is economically feasible to take the disk to a shop where a technician who knows what they're doing could bring this disk back to a reliable state? Or is it like most electronics in that it's cheaper just to buy another one rather than try to repair it?

Also, are 5400 RPM drives inherently less subject to failure than 7200 RPM drives?

Thanks for any insights on this subject.

 

Given the price of hdd nowadays I am not sure why one would want to take it a repair shop to get it fixed when there is no important data on it. The cost of fixing it would probably be at 5 times the price of a new drive. You could spend 50 dollars trying to diagnose the problem and still get nothing done in the end.

Maybe it is wiser to get a new hdd from a reputable online store with proper warranty.

The modern day 7200 rpm 2.5 inch drive have very similar failure rate as the 5400 rpm drive.

 

Hard drives cannot be fixed like that. They are assembled in clean rooms, so if you got one maybe you got a shot.

I don't think the drive's rotational speed plays a significant factor in drive failure, though 5400 rpm drives do run a few C cooler.

 

Thanks for the info. I figured fixing it would be impractical but thought I'd ask. I looks so usable lying there that I hate to toss it in the trash - but such is the way of electronic things in 2011.

Yes, I paid way too much ($28 including shipping) for an eBay drive. I'm just looking for a couple cheap drives to make duplicate disk drives in case of primary drive failure. I was too hasty with that first purchase. For ten dollars more I could have gotten another new drive on Amazon.

I did get a new drive on Amazon with good warranty. That's the WD3200 (black) currently in the T400.

Thanks again for the feedback you guys.

 

7200RPM drives don't really run hotter, thats a myth, temps are more affected by brand and age I think.

There are forums nearly as big as this one but completely dedicated to hard drive repair. Yes its possible to recover data from nearly anything. There are some people out there who are extremely good and can tell by listening.

 

What do you guys think it means when an eBay seller states that their HD is "seller refurbished?"

Considering that repairing these disks is so labor/skill intensive and must be done in a clean room, does "seller refurbished" basically mean they cleaned the case with some alcohol and a rag?

Guesses?

 

That sounds extremely shady. They probably dusted it off and zero filled it, or maybe not even zero filled it considering it was broken. I would file a complain with eBay/PayPal on principle if nothing else.

 

The "seller refurbished" question applies to current offerings on eBay, not the one I bought. The seller I bought my failed drive from stated it was from an HP upgrade - a "pulled" drive. I should have been wary of the 3-day return policy of the seller and the fact that she encouraged me to give her positive feedback much too quickly. I did, thinking to help her with her low feedback numbers.

I can file for reimbursement I think under the eBay Protection but was thinking this purchase was kind of dumb on my part and am thinking to just write it off as a learning experience. Still, $28 is $28 so I'll re-think that.

 

Thread moved to Hardware forum, as it's a bit more pertinent there.

 

Ahhh yea. Like you said, 3 day return policy and the fact they pushed for positive feedback quickly is just screaming 'scam'. IMO every eBay seller should be treated as a potential scam. You should never be trying to help them out.

You learned either way... so get that $$ back! Don't let the scammer win!

 

I doubt these people have the facility to actually refurbish a hdd or would waste their time to do such a thing, given the cost of the equipments and time involved. Most likely it is just a second hand drive that has been cleaned externally.

No one would go to the trouble of opening up a hdd to change their parts and then sell them for 28 dollars.

The heat produced by the hdd depends on the motor, lubricating oil, speed of the platter spinning, how many hours it is been on for (also wear and tear), the shape of the internal hdd structure, the heat transfer property of the casing and surrounding ambient temperature (and whether there is any circulating air moving over the hdd).

 

> You learned either way... so get that $$ back! Don't let the scammer win!

I can't argue with that logic. I'm not convinced the seller is a scammer, but you're right, if there is a provision for rectifying a loss then I should take advantage of it. So I've written the seller asking for a replacement. Under the eBay Protection policy contact with the seller is required so that's what I've done. I'll report back on how this turns out since many other participants of the NBR forums will likely be considering buying a HD on eBay.

I've had excellent luck over the years on eBay, including buying the T400 I'm writing this with. I expect this situation will turn out well too.

Meantime, I'm keeping an eye out on eBay for cheap drives to be used for back-up purposes.

 

> 7200RPM drives don't really run hotter, thats a myth, temps are more affected by brand and age I think.

I've noticed no difference in temperature or noise in going from the 5400 WD1600 blue to the 7200 WD3200 black. Nor have I noticed any increase in speed.

 

" Nor have I noticed any increase in speed."

Probably you won't notice it because the difference is in the low milliseconds. The difference is cumulative.

Renee

 

I think "Seller Refurbished" means they received the hard drive(or laptop or whatever), and cleaned it up for resale. Just because it says Seller Refurbished doesn't mean they physically opened the driver and replaced something.

 

I don't know if this was asked already, but is the drive under warranty? Run the serial.

 

No. Nobody has suggested that.

So I just did run the serial # on WD's website and came up with 0 results found. Maybe I ran the search in the wrong place?

I did find this:

If your Product was purchased as a component integrated within a system by a system manufacturer, no limited warranty is provided by WD. Please contact the place of purchase or the system manufacturer directly for warranty service.

My failed drive was described by the seller as having come from an HP notebook that was upgraded to a larger drive.

Seller hasn't responded to my email so far and seems to have only one other item for sale on eBay - a BestBuy gift card. This drive might have come out of the trash for all I know. I'll file for a refund under eBay Protection and will probably get reimbursed.

Meantime I've had a brief fling shopping for an SSD but quickly gave that up. They are still ridiculously expensive when you can get a new WD3200 Scorpio Black on Amazon for about $35. I paid $56 recently and paid too much. I've been a bad shopper lately

 

Ah, forgot about that. It's an OEM drive which means that if you had problems the OEM--in this case HP--would be the one to replace it for you.

But in case you're not sure if you did the search in the right place, check warranty here.

 

Go to the Western Digital website and see if your drive is in warranty. If it was really pulled from a HP system, it is most likely an OEM drive with no direct Western Digital warranty.

It means they're scamming you. eBay does no enforcement of the "item condition" listing requirements, even when informed about mis-represented condition. It would also help honest sellers if they added some more categories, like "seller tested".

If you want to see real abuse of this sort of thing, look at the kind of stuff that gets listed as "New - other".

There are a wide variety of items that cannot be "refurbished" outside of a manufacturing facility. Aside from hard drives, another category that gets a lot of bogus "refurbished" claims are UPS batteries. Those batteries are sealed and the only way to "refurbish" them is to disassemble them in a recycling environment and make new ones out of the components.

You could try opening a case with eBay Buyer Protection.

 

Thanks Forge for sending me to the right place. It found the drive and said there is no limited warranty on it. It also said it was eligible for a "customer loyalty upgrade" but I didn't see any prices there that would prompt me to be loyal.

Again . . . this drive was not marketed as "customer refurbished." It was sold as a pull from an HP system. But who knows where it came from. It failed right away so the seller could have pulled it out of a junk drawer. It's a new seller. I don't think she'll be around very long - not after she has to reimburse eBay for the buyer protection refund I'll more than likely get.

I was foolish to not have tested it immediately when I got it. Looking back I can't come up with a good reason why I didn't. I was complacent I guess that the seller would not have sent junk and also because I've never had a drive fail (that I can recall) in almost 30 years of computing. I come from the DOS era when we learned to be diligent about disk organization and maintenance.

I sure would like to get an SSD (as all of us would) but I just can't justify spending $200+ when I can get a new 320 Black Scorpio on Amazon for $35 and free shipping. In another year prices will probably be much lower for these drives.

Thanks everyone for all the new (for me) info and advice on this situation. I've learned a lot. Great forum.

 

You wouldn't be able to get warranty for the drive without the HP serial number and model part number.

 

It was within three days of the 45 day eBay Protection period that I got my refund from the seller. She did so without complaint. I don't think the seller is a scammer, it was just bad luck, plus she didn't run a diagnostic on the drive before she put it up for sale.

If I get a chance to "steal" one on eBay I'll do so just to have an extra HD around, but most used or "refurbished" 320GB 2.5 laptop drives seem to be going for $25-$30. Since for $20 more (sometimes even less) you can get a new one on Amazon, with warranty, I've decided just to get another new one. It should be waiting for me at the post office today.

eBay continues to be a very good buying experience even when things don't go quite right.

BTW - the second HD is for duplication purposes. My "loss strategy" is to periodically make an exact duplicate of my main HD so in case of corruption, failure or notebook theft I have my complete system stored in the sock drawer, ready to boot up. My duplication software has been Casper until recently, when I discovered a free program called MiniTool Partition Wizard 5.2 Home Edition. It seems to work just as well as Casper.

 

Greetings Peeps:

I had a PATA-100 drive with a one year warranty,,,shortly after one year, it started doing the same thing your mentioning,,I performed a low level format and restored it( it was never perfect again, yet worked), there could be many thing a rye with the drive,,boot sector virus ect,,,,try using a zero fill utility and see if this does the trick,,if you want you can get a third party low level format utility or wd one if they still support this and give this a try,,,you have nothing to lose......Mine as I recall had several bad sectors and windows had a problem getting over this hurdle doing backups,,,i used it as back up drive for fastest in the world back up utility I made, backup was timed at 30 seconds and restore 2 minutes,,low level format utility got the job done and breathed new life in a dead disk,,,,,,,,,,may the force be with you.

Cheers
3Fees