[Gamoe]

I recently bought a new external Maxtor FireWire 80 GB (well, it wasn't really. They like to count a GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, though it's really 1,073,741,824 bytes. Imagine what would happen if gasoline stations decided to go by their "own" definition of what a "gallon" is.) I bought it, because I thought it would bring an end to the problems of having a 2 GB drive these days, at least for a good while.

Well, it was running okay 'till now. Apparently, the Hard Drive itself is fine, but the internal power supply has failed, denying me access to any of the data inside the drive.

The Maxtor representative I spoke with wasn't very helpful at all. in fact, this company's customer service leaves much to be desired. They had sent me a replacement power adaptor, to be fair, since this was thought to be the problem before. But, they have left me with no choices but to void my warranty and try to save my data, or return the HD and get a new, blank drive from them.

Since it seems to be the the only way to save my data, I have chosen the former. Now, does anyone know if I could replace the damaged parts of the drive, or how to connect it as an internal drive to a Power Mac 8600 (it is an Ultra ATA drive)? I would greatly appreciate any help anyone could give me. Thanks.

[Macola]

Originally posted by Gabriel Morales:
<STRONG>
Since it seems to be the the only way to save my data, I have chosen the former. Now, does anyone know if I could replace the damaged parts of the drive, or how to connect it as an internal drive to a Power Mac 8600 (it is an Ultra ATA drive)? I would greatly appreciate any help anyone could give me. Thanks.</STRONG>

I had a Maxtor external die on New Year's day It was a replacement for my original Maxtor. Both had the red light problem, but this one eventually had the bridge die out completely, corrupting the drivers along the way. I suspect that's what happened to yours as well. Needless to say, I'll never buy a Maxtor again.

It's pretty easy to open the case. Just use a knife or screwdriver to pry open the grey side panels and then pop open the white plastic case. You need to use some force (don't worry, the panels won't break--well maybe if you really push it...). Unscrew the drive from the metal plate, and pull out the power connector and the IDE connector. Then you can use the drive as an internal IDE drive if your Mac has a free slot open. If not, you can buy an Ultra ATA PCI controller at most Mac places (I like OWC: www.macsales.com). You can also buy a new Firewire enclosure from OWC and use your drive as it was meant to be. Good luck.

[ 01-07-2002: Message edited by: Macola ]