Dead hard drive...

[Baron_Flambe]

Yesterday my m'board died, taking with it my new 80gb HDD. :'(

I've had the board and HDD replaced, and the shop gave me back the dead bits including the HDD. According to the Maxtor site, their drives come with a three year warranty, but one of the steps in going about getting it replaced is to test it using their Powermax utility.

Here's the snag. The guy in the shop said that either the IDE controller had died and killed the disk, or the disk had died and killed the IDE controller. He couldn't tell which, but they were both dead. If it's possible for the disk to damage my new m'board I don't want to try connecting it up to test it.

Can anyone give me some advice?

Thanks, Chris

[Blaqb0x]

Why don't you ask the 'guy in the shop' if he has an old clinker that you can try to HD on? Or find one somewhere... your School?

[trickster]

On my experience, it shouldn't but it can...

I concurr that you should try it on an old unwanted machine..

[Baron_Flambe]

Thanks for the replies, it will not be going back into my machine even for testing. I'd already pretty much decided that, but wanted to run it past you guys in case I was being paranoid.

I don't have an old clunker to test it on myself, (still kicking myself for throwing that out!) but I've had a poke around at work and found a couple of old machines, one of which could probably be pressed into service as a sacrificial lamb.

In the first instance I'll probably try taking it back to where I bought it and get them to take a look.

[Baron_Flambe]

Well, I brought the disk into work with me and tested it on an old machine. The Powermax utility confirmed that it's not at all happy, and provided me with the required error code to get a return authorisation from Maxtor. I'll call in at the shop where I bought it on my way home from work and try there first. If no joy I'll post it off to Maxtor and get them to deal with it.

The old machine survived its encounter, and has been returned to its former job of happily collecting dust in the corner.

[Schotty]

From what I see, your controller spiked and nuked your HD. Plus, nice job in not screwing around with luck. No need to hose YOUR systems with a drive that is unknown to have caused the death of a board. Let a repair shop do that.