Unrecognized Hard Drive

[Bill Davidsen]

jdow wrote:

> It sounds like the drive cannot get its head mounted and simply hangs
> somehow. It's not useful for backups. If I had data on it there are some
> "hacks" I might try, sharply twisting the drive on the axis of rotation
> as power is applied, for example. Sometimes that will get the disk to
> spin up if that's the problem. I've managed to rescue data that way a
> couple times.
> 
I like "drive tapping" myself for spinup. Start tapping the drive with the 
handle of a screwdriver (side impact, not on top) and apply power. I have used 
that with success back to ESDI days, and most recently on a PATA drive I brute 
copied to a file and accessed as a drive on a virtual machine. It will get 
started one more time, to run DBAN on it and clean off the data. Part of my 
"January is 'clean your office' month" program.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot