Maxtor 300gb SATA drive (16mb) problems ...

[Safeway]

So the drive was working fine ... 13gb MP3s, movies, games, etc. Then, I had to move my computer from Austin to Dallas for the Summer. In doing so, I had to push the HDD securely into the mounting rails in a Sonata.

Now that its all setup again, the HDD is showing up on Samurize as "Disconnected". Attempting to browse it via Explorer results in a looong pause and (Not Responding). I left the computer processing while I ate dinner tonight and returned to see "Drive G: is not formatted, would you like to format?". WTF!

I thought it might be the SATA cable with a crimp in it from moving, so I switched cables. No luck. What else could it be?! When I put my hand on the drive, it is noticably warm and spinning, and there is an occassional bump or series of more defined jolts. No noise associated with those bumps though.

My HDD activity light is solid without anything running. Could a virus be causing all of this? I seriously doubt I have a virus, as it didn't do this before I left.

Any help is appreciated.

[dbwillis]

you can try the GetDataBack for NTFS from runtime.org, it will check the drive and see if its got recoverable files....
Sounds like it either crapped out/crashed, or maybe heat or static did something to it

[Safeway]

I am currently running a full scan ... but how will I go about backing it up? I might have to go through my C and delete misc crap.

I checked the warrenty on the drive and amazingly, its good until 11/2007, so an RMA is very possible. I just have to get the special padded foam they require you to pack the drive with.

[Kureboy99]

Odd...I have the same drive I think...is yours the Maxline III drive by chance? Mines been fine...if there were "bumps" without associated clicking noises...this sounds like the motor might be fried in the HD and not spinning. It's possible that you can try to "un-jolt" the disk and gett he motor spinning by grabbing the drive and holding it at a 180 degree angle and then rotating it from side to side. Not sure if this will help but give it a shot...it was probably warm because the motor was stuck and it wasn't going anymore but current was still being passed to it to try and spin it. Anyway, try it and if it still does not work...RMA time. You might want to also try powering off your PC for a bit and then powering it back on...I had an old WD that wouldn't spin up until I tried to reboot it several times to get the disk to start spinning.

[AceGoober]

If the drive is not spinning, then here is a somewhat risky suggestion for you to try:

1. Power off the computer.
2. Unplug the power connector to the drive.
3. Turn on the computer and get into the BIOS.
4. Plug the power connector back into the drive to see if that makes it spin up.
5. Hit the reset button and see if the drive is recognized by the BIOS.