Reparing old IDE drive (WD 95044A)

[Alkarion]

I had an old Western Digital IDE drive in my 286 (read about it also on this (http://www.redhill.net.au/d/d-a.html) page). While the 286 was long ago refitted with a 486 motherboard to serve as a Linux server, I still have the old drive and would like to access its contents. Unfortunately the drive seems to be broken.

Though the drive is recognized by the BIOS you cannot access it and it makes ugly noises (it uses the old, very sensitive stepper motor technique). Now I've read in another thread (http://vintage-computer.com/vcforum/viewtopic.php?t=996) on this forum that such drives are still commercially repaired. I'd like to know which companies still do this and if the price of a few hundred dollars is realistic (I fear it would be higher).

[Terry Yager]

Keep in mind that if it's making noises, they could be indicative of a head crash onto the platters, which may have destroyed the data in that section making it unrecoverable by any means.

--T

[Alkarion]

My (uneducated) guess is rather that the motor itself has a problem. It sounds as if it is stuck. Since you can even see the motor axis coming out of the hard disk case you can estimate what movements it is still capable of and I fear mine doesn't move very much.