Fixing a Maxtor hard drive

I had an accident with my Maxtor hard drive .It was broken. I replaced the broken part.

Step 1 Identifying the problem

Is your hard drive broken?
Is it hardware or software?

Problem
Powers on but BIOS doesn't see it correctly (size and partition) DOS tools don't work.Windows doesn't work
Solution
Software. Go to the Hard drive manufacturer site and download and make their boot floppy or boot CD.
Use their software tools. For example low level format the drive, which takes a few hours but makes the drive workable again. The drive is empty but not broken. FDISK format etc.

Problem
Doesn't power on.
Solution
Find broken part and replace it.
Difficulty is high as it's hard to tell what part is broken.

I accidentally broke my hard drive. I had my tower case on its side and powered on, the hard drive was on its component side down. The hard drive accidentally moved and short circuited on a mounting screw on the grounded frame of the case.I was lucky in the sense I could easily see the broken part. A transisitor on the circuit board broke/exploded/popped in a second.Hopefully this was the only broken part.

Comments

[mwai2]

My Maxtor can no longer be detected in Windows but it does in BIOS. How can I work it out?
Any assistance is highly appreciated.

[recordmasta001]

good instructable. good for taking very important data off but i think as a perminaant fix it wouldnt be a good idea seeing as hard drives are very important parts of your system

[junaidahmed]

My Maxtor HDD 3.5 Series Not Detect . Please Help Me

[Derin]

Not "not detect"."Does not detect".

[ownerofwet]

HELP!!! I made the mistake of trying to move my Maxtor from my macbook pro to my regular windows computer and it can know longer be detected on any of the computers. I call to maxtor about it and they said I would have to pay them thousands of dollars to get them to turn the maxtor back on with my information on it. It will allow me to restart it if I am willing to lose all the information on it. I would like to know how to get the information off the maxtor before I restart it. HELP PLEASE!!!

[Derin]

you can try to rewrite the master boot record using the command fixmbr

[Derin]

In the command prompt,of course. Example: C:>fixmbr D:

[Derin]

I messed that command up.Through a bootable Windows OS command prompt(Vista install DVD has one,and XP live should have one too.) go to your HDD letter with the cd command and write just fixmbr.

[watergeorg]

We all make mistakes... :-) Did u try any of the salvage apps for your Mac? There are lots of them. Did u try to rebuild your register (ctrl + alt when you start up)? I need to know more about what OS u are using, what u already tried to do and at what level u are in your Mac knowledge. Send me an email and I'll try to help you. PS: U don't live in Norway, do u? I thought that u could come here with your HD...

[mark101]

sorry that is out of my area of knowledge. this is my 2 cents worth of information. you will probably lose what on the drive. study the format storage methods of macbooks.(of this i know nothing, i DONT think they use the 12345678.123 format) study PC storage methods. I know you need a boot track on the disk/platter of a hard drive. This is called MBR master boot record. I suggest you look for and maybe create this in Apple/Mac type of FDISK ? as that was the original file format of the disk. I only know PC kind of FDISK. so 1) learn about FDISK, see if in FDISK the hard drive exists. 2) if it doesnt exist make the MBR exist. 3) use recovery programs that scan all the digital data and through logic of data distribution, find and recover data. this can take hours. I used "zero assumption recovery" a few times on memory cards, I don't know how well it works on hard drives. z-a-recovery.com/download.htm

[anybody2k]

On my Maxtor 6V250F0 the CR205 component turned into smoke yesterday. Really strange, since I do not think that I've done anything wrong!

According to
http://www.ozzu.com/unix-linux-forum/slackware-dont-find-sata-drive-t90420.html
this might be a design fault...

Really strange. The HDD with the blown CR205 still works fine though (funny, I wonder what CR205 is good for then, doesn't seem to be THAT important), so I was able to rescue all my data from it. Will buy a new HDD today.

[Kegtapper]

suggestion: Remove some of the solder from the legs. Use Flux Paste and allow heat to spread the solder smoothly under the chip - that backplane of the chip also acts as a heatsink.

[phonix]

HI, My Maxtor Diamondmax 10 Sata Has Broken down in the same way, I would like to know where to get replacement parts for Maxtor. I've tried Ebay but cannot find any. After taking a look at my hard drive it looks like the cr205 has blown.

[Mr.Devious]

The transistor isn't too far off as far as the actual units. But because you damaged it a bit with the soldering iron, make backups incase it does go again.

[mark101]

" transistor isn't too far off " sorry but it is very far off. I didn't save the web page that had the specs. on the original part. and the part I replaced it with(unknown) just has the same form factor/size/shape. Transistors have specific and fixed tolerances of currents, voltages and frequency etc. you can't expect any random transistor to work in place of a broken one.(assuming they also have the same base/emitor/collector pin assignment)

[Mr.Devious]

So if you know this, then why did you use that instead of waiting to get the right part?

[mark101]

Yes I am foolishly impatient. Lots of reasons. I didn't know what else was broken when it didn't work / I didn't think that just one part was broken. I don't have a car to visit the stores that sell electronic parts .

[Mr.Devious]

hey man, it's alright, I'm just saying that because if it didn't work, all the data on that hard drive would most likely had gotten corrupt.

[mark101]

the Cystekec page of the BTD1758J3 dissapeared.

[mark101]

oh great! I just a link http://www.alldatasheet.co.kr/datasheet-pdf/pdf_kor/CYSTEKEC/BTD1758J3.html
and the B1202 I put in its place is looking(web searching) like a PNP so it shouldn't work at all.

[dugupuk]

I don't believe your timing! I've had the same component go and its now burning bright orange. Scan.co.uk have refused to replace the drive as they "are unable to test it" and have returned it. So either I can send it back to maxtor myself, try and repair it as per your helpful instructions or complain to Trading Standards. I'm trying the last two! Thanks for your help!

[trebuchet03]

You are quite lucky :P Nice improvisation - I'll bet a lot of people would just buy a new drive. Lesson Learned: keep your machine assembled while running :P

[mark101]

Thank you, and a new drive would be about $80.00 here. The motherboard I took the part from was free so it wasn't an expensive gamble. Yes always keep your machine firmly bolted/assembled when testing. I had tested hard drives(loose) so many times, I was careless.