I know all of you were sitting on the edge of your chairs wondering about what happened to my situation with my dead hard drives. I took my “Music” drive out of my freezer only to have it not detect at all (less then it did before). I let it warm up and tried again, and it was able to mount in Windows for a split second then disappeared. I took it to my work in hopes they had some data recovery program they could run on it. When hooked up to the data recovery program it crashed the program as well as Windows which from my co-workers experience it probably means that the PCB which is the electronic logic board that every hard drive has that talks to the splatter inside which has all the data. His opinion was that my data was there and intact, but the PCB is dead or malfunctioning and that I could find a hard drive of the exact same model and batch number, near the same manufactured date, almost the same DCM number, and exact PCB model number which is like finding a needle in a haystack.
I was able to find someone who only sells PCB logic boards on eBay and he happened to have my model of my drive. I took a $100 chance and bought the PCB card from him. When looking at his feedback it looks like lots of people were able to get their drive working again to get data off with the PCB’s he sold, so that looks promising. Once I receive the PCB try it out, I write an update.
I did receive my 500G SATA drive and my case fan in the mail from newegg.com which amazes me every time I order from them on how quick they get stuff to me. When installing my new fan I discovered the power cable to the fan was only 5 inches or so and would not reach my motherboard to connect. This really pissed me off that they’d make it so short so I had to go to a local computer shop and buy an extension. I was able to get everything installed and working after my 500G drive took 3 hours to format.
On a happy note my “Live Music” drive came back to life yesterday which is awesome. I am going to back that up onto another drive before it’s too late.
Wish me luck.