How do I get a crashed Powermac G4 hard drive to mount?

Hi BDAqua,

Thank you for the fast response.

No, unfortunately none of them saw the Hd at all. I also did try data rescue and it too could not recognize the hard drive.

The DW tip you mentioned is useful one that I didn't know. It will come in handy in the future.

Hi Patrick,

those are good questions. I haven't tried putting the WD in another G4 (Quicksilver) although I did think of that. Since it didn't mount in an external good quality (Wiebetech) powered firewire enclosure attached to another G4 I thought it wouldn't work installed inside that G4 either.

The condition of the motherboard is fine including battery, ram etc. since the other drive, a ATA Maxtor diamondmax 9 mounts fine (when it is the only drive on the ide cable). I am currently using the computer via this drive and everthing works well.

Hi Glen,

thank you for your response and suggestions. Truth be told, the old wives tale you mention is gospel for some depending on where one looks on the internet. There's actually a website dedicated to the discussion of crashed hard drives that was started by a guy who persisted in trying to look at alternatives because the professional data recovery option was too expensive for him to pursue.

He eventually had success with an exact make and model "donor" drive logic board swap and got all his data back. On the forum there and elsewhere many people swear by the freezer method as the only way they got their data back.

However, the option also has risks so has to be applied with care. So I'm not committed to pursuing that path and no I wouldn't blame you for putting the idea in my head or suggesting the link if I was to try it.

I'm also not currently trying to mount the hard drive but instead have spent some time researching my options prior to data recovery. I had the thought to find a database of failed or failing hard drive sounds so I could compare it to the sound my Western Digital is making. I eventually found a great place with failed hard drive sounds for all different makes and types (ironically run by a generous Data recovery company who want you to be able to determine whether their services are needed).

I compared the sound of my hard drive to several Western Digitals on their website plus the sound of dying hard drive on another site and was relieved to hear that my hard drive doesn't sound like it is dying. What it sounds closest to is the example of a fried logic board. In that instance a logic board swap remounted the drive. Many other people on the web have had success with this method, provided the drive is an exact or close match in manufacturing date, model type and firmware. (Some specialist companies can also burn the exact crashed drive firmware code into the donor drive's logic board.)

At best, if the firmware doesn't match, the drive simply spins up but doesn't mount. So at the moment I'm trying to locate an exact donor drive to do a board swap. Since the WD is an apple branded "Expert" rather than the more common Caviar drive this isn't easy but I'm hopeful.

Secondly, on another website I saw the suggestion to try mounting the drive into a PC or into bootcamp. The thought here is that when a hard drive is full it runs out of index room and starts overwriting itself. This in turn leads to data corruption. So if the Pc ignores the Western Digital generated data corruption errors that are taking down the ide bus in my mac, and mounts the drive it can help diagnose if data corruption is the problem or not.

Some here might think that mounting a drive in a pc is problematic, but it was suggested by a mac expert. Atleast the bootcamp option is something for me to look into first as it will keep the Western Digital on a mac.

That's where I am so far. Any other thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

I didn't include any links in my post above as I'm new here. I'm not sure whether posting links of my research and specially to a professional data recovery company that I have no affiliation to is permissible so haven't done so.

However if that is permissible I would happily post those since I know this could be a very useful diagnostic or alternative information for other crashed hard drive owners with the anxiety of lost data milling around their head.]