Maxtor Hard Drive Recovery

Causes for data loss of Maxtor hard drives

Just like any other mechanical or electronic device, Maxtor hard drives are not resistant against wear and tear or a multitude of other failures. For example: A headcrash (click of death), PCB errors, damages on the ferromagnetic surfaces (read errors or I/O errors), firmware errors, bearing damage and motor damage or environmental unfluences such as water- or moisture damages or heat or fire damages.

• Wear and tear of hard drives (physical errors or damages on the surfaces or write/read heads)
• Drop or fall damage (Vibrations, shock, impact, tipping or falling over)
• Moisture and liquid damage (flood or storm damages, water damage after e.g. a pipe burst)
• High temperatures or heat (over-heating, direct solar radiation, insufficient cooling)
• Hard drives with defective SATA-, IDE-, SCSI-Interfaces or SCA-adapters

Typical error patterns of Maxtor hard drives

• Dropped external Maxtor hard drive with a (headcrash)
• Hard drive makes unusual noises (e.g. Maxtor hard drive is ticking, clicking, buzzing, screeching, grinding, clacking, beeping)
• formatted hard drives
• Data was deleted (and partly overwritten)
• Partition was deleted or newly created
• Maxtor hard drives within a RAID failed
• Hard drive has defective sectors (Bad Blocks)
• Hard drive diagnosis tools reports S.M.A.R.T. errors
• Hard drive is shown as empty (0 byte)
• Files cannot be opened
• Defective or damaged PCB after over-voltage (wrong power supply)
• File systems needs to be checked, unable to repair the file system
• File system was repaired, but no access to the files
• Folder structure is damaged
• Virus on the hard drive
• Maxtor hard drive spins slowly
• Hard drive needs to be formatted
• Files have been moved to the recycle bin and emptied
• Hard drive does not spin any more and makes no noise
• The Maxtor HDD is not recognized and not shown in the BIOS
• Slow access or heavily delayed copying processes
• Error message while system start/booting (Unix, Linux, Windows, MacOS)
• File cannot be opened, saved or deleted
• Maxtor hard drive reports I/O error (input/output error)

General information about Maxtor

The hard drive manufacturing company Maxtor was founded in 1982. After taking over the Quantum hard drive branch in 2000 and MCC Technology in 2001, it became the fourth-largest hard drive manufacturer by fall 2005 after  Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi (HGST). In 2005 Maxtor was bought by Seagate. The brand continued to exist, but actually it's Seagate hard drives models with different labels (e.g. Diamond Max 21 STM3160815AS, Diamond Max 22 STM3320418AS) and Maxtor firmware. Among experts they are therefore called "Seagate Maxtor" hard drives.