Computer will not turn on with HD connected

[usafbran]

Hello, just having a small problem.

Recently my computer would not cut on. I troubleshooted by connecting / disconnected each part, and narrowed it down to one of my hard drives. Any time this hard drive is connected to the computer, it will not cut on. I tried it in my other two computers and received the same thing. My guess is it's sending bad voltages back to the motherboard, in turn not allowing it to turn on. Maybe it's not grounding out or something? I don't know a whole lot about hard drives and their electrical properties, or how power supplies work. Does anyone know how i can get this drive started up and at a minimum extract my data from it?

It's a maxtor 7L300S0, 300gb sata150 HDD

I considered getting an external enclosure and hooking it up to it, but i'm not sure if that would work, any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Tedster]

if you have narrowed it to a faulty drive, then putting it in an exernal enclosure won't help. At best it might connect, but then your data would be unreliable - you wouldn't want that now would you? At worst - it will be the same at what you have now - a dead drive. My suggestion is to warranty replace the drive if it less than 3 years. (or just replace it period.)

 

[HPCE_Larry]

will it flat not turn on or will it not boot? does that hard drive have your os on it or not?

 

[russ]

If you have a "live cd" that you can boot knoppix or some type of linux system from your cd drive you maybe able to then connect the hard drive and access the contents.

 

[usafbran]

NO COMPUTER will TURN ON with this hard drive connected to it. I just used it for mass storage, it doesnt have my OS on it. It does however contain about three years worth of pictures of my children. I could care less about keeping the drive or anything. I just simply want to recover my data, but when i hook it to any computer, that computer will not turn on. which is why it leads me to believe it's some type of bad voltage being sent back to the motherboard, because the computer will flicker on for less than a second, then cut off when it detects whatever is wrong with the hard drive. The instant i disconnect that hard drive, i can turn on the computer.

I just want my data back