> Since you have taken the disk apart it will now be useless as within the > enclosure there could have been a vacuum or an inert gas. >From what I know gas filled disks didn't exist in the times when 3X0GB was on a 2" drive. > > You will never be able to recover any data on the disk unless you go and > pay > for a professional data recovery organisation to read the platters. No, if he did care that the disks didn't become dirty then the drive should still work quite well to recover what is on it. Of course the cover should be put on ASAP. If you don't believe me, just try it our yourself. > > The price for a replacement 340GByte USB disk is about $25 which would > give > you a better product than your old disk. The OP wanted to recover what is on the disk, not use it as a normal disk. Simon > > Mark > > -----Original Message----- > From: H > Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 4:47 PM > To: centos at centos.org > Subject: Re: [CentOS] External harddisk > > On 09/30/2020 05:40 AM, John Pierce wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 8:33 AM H <agents at meddatainc.com> wrote: >> >>> I have an old external harddisk, Toshiba 320 Gb, with a USB connector >>> that >>> I wanted to check for contents. It did not start up when connected and >>> I >>> could not hear the motor spinning. After leaving it in the freezer >>> overnight the motor spins but it is not recognized by my computer. I >>> disassembled it and could see that the head assembly rests outside the >>> disk >>> but when it is powered on, the head first moves to the center of the >>> disk, >>> then to the periphery and finally back to the resting position. This >>> happens every few seconds and leaving it connected overnight changed >>> nothing. >>> >> That repeated seeking suggests it's not passing its self test, and is >> constantly retrying. It's probably searching for servo data on the >> disks, >> and not finding it. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CentOS mailing list >> CentOS at centos.org >> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > I see. I have not searched for any low-level disk utility from Toshiba, > the > manufacturer of the disk. Do you think that might be worthwhile to > hopefully > fix this? > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >