Argh! One of my internal drives has stopped working. It doesn't mount, and I don't know why. I removed it and put it into an external enclosure just in case it was a motherboard thing, but it still doesn't come up. What else can I try? Is there any way to save the media? I wouldn't be able to do some kind of platter transplant would I?

Try plugging it into another computer and see if you can get at the data. If that does not work it is definately the hard drive. "I wouldn't be able to do some kind of platter transplant would I?" No. They use special chambers that remove dust and contaminants from the air and special suits when they make them or repair them. My friend swears this works (I dont really believe him as I found it on a list of hard drive myths on google): He says put it in a plastic bag in the freezer. Then take it out of the bag and reattach it to the system and turn the system on. You will only have a short time to get data off the drive and it will stop working completely - so know what you need to save and where it is. Like I said I dont believe it works but he says it worked on about 2/3 of hard drives he tried it on. Look it up online before you try it. This is a last resort method just before you decide to throw away the drive. If it is absolutely essential to get the data send it to an expert and pony up the small fortune it will take.

"Is there any way to save the media? I wouldn't be able to do some kind of platter transplant would I?" Does it spin? Does the bios see it? If both of those apply, connect it as a slave, and test it with a hard drive diagnostics utility, available free at the maker of the drive's web site. If it is not salvagable, see the following. If it does spin, but is not recognized by the bios, your only options are to either get another drive of the identical model, or a drive in the same family that uses the identical board (much less likely), and swap the controller boards, or - to open up the drive and swap the platters with a compatible drive - the identical model obviously the best match. Or you could have a professional service do that for you. There are usually oddball fasteners in/on them - e.g. star or torx head screws. You must be very careful not to comtaminate the drive inside. If it does not spin, the motor bearings are probably seized, and/or the motor is burned out. You would have to open up the drive and swap the platters with a compatible drive - the identical model obviously the best match. Or you could have a professional service do that for you. There are professional data recovery services all over the web, and if you live in a fair sized place, there may be one or more where you live - some places that build and/or repair computers can do that. Some drive manufacturers also have a data recovery service that can do these things.

Try freezing it as posted above. It won't hurt it and it just might work ... for a while.

The trouble with the plastic bag in the freezer trick is there is an atmospheric vent on all hard drives, and it is quite possible to have frost form inside the drive, even if you use a bag, and that can cause havoc inside the drive, and further damage. Also, it only takes the drive a short time to warm up enough to misbehave again after you remove it from the freezer. If the drive spins, you can accomplish the same thing without risking the frost probem by removing the drive, positioning it so the controller board is fully exposed, connecting it, and after it has reached its minimum temperature, blowing air at at with a large fan, or better still, cooled air from an air conditioner. The reason a drive fails is usually because the controller board fails. In the earlier stages of failure, the drive often misbehaves only when it has warmed up - cooling the drive works because there are often chips on the board that are getting too hot for whatever reason.

Erik Rosenbluh- Go to the drive manufacturer's web site and download diagnostic tools for the drive. It will surely tell you if it's dead or what. No sense proceeding until you know what's going on with it. :-) Search Engines Are Your Friends ☺ Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"

If you take out the platters and change them with another drive..... Failure of the heads from a drive where those heads are misaligned often results in unrecoverable data as the donor heads also need to have the original degree of head misalignment in order to recover the data successfully. You can't just do here a platter there a platter. This is an exact and precise operation.