Someone else already suggested this & I concur. Go find the same drive at MPC or ebay & trade out parts. You obviously have problem with the arm that moves across the platter. Take your's apart & look. If the tiny head has come off one of the arms, the platter will be scratched - just move on with your life. If the heads & platters look good, the control mechanism is probably at fault. Swap the parts. Keep everything clean (obvious). In my experience, the drive will function long enough to get your data off (usually months longer). >Yikes, I just got a quote back from OnTrack on the data recovery...$1,800! _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list