Problematic Hard Drive

[badgern]

I have a problem with a Fujitsu 30 Gb hard drive, the PC is 18 months old. I left the thing on overnight which is something I often do.. when I tried to use the computer the following morning it was very slow and lethargic. I tried to switch the thing off using shutdown but it wouldn't shut off so I did a hard reboot. After that the PC would not reboot, saying a boot drive failure. I booted up using a floppy and that said that there was no FAT or FAT32 partition, it gave some advice, ie: use FDISK or there may possibly be a virus. I tried FDISK but that just said there was no fixed drive present! I tried auto detect in BIOS but that showed no hard drive. In other words, nothing recognises the HDD. I have replaced the drive and it's now fine but there was almost a months work lost! I know.... I do back up every month but sods law says it was almost a month since the last back-up!
Does anyone have any ideas? I'm really more worried about the loss of work that the disk, any way I can get it back?
Also.. Does anyone have any idea how long the warranty is on the Fujitsu drive? I have tried their site and e-mailed them but no reply to date. As to the possible virus, how do I run a virus checker if nothing recognises the HDD?

Thanks a lot...........

[Dragonjucr]

If you want to try and remove the partition, try using DELPART This will usually wipe out any HD partition.



Click here to get DELPART and look for the ftp link (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q103049)

[SPEEDO]

If it wasn't a bad ide cable connection which I'm sure you checked then the drive has probably seen better days.

There are data recovery services out there but your looking at some major expense here, about $750. is just a guess from the last time I looked... :eek:

SPEEDO

[lito pospos]

is their any unusual sound prior to this, if no
one way to retrieve your data is get same model of harddisk swap their controller board, this work only if hd head did not crush,

[SPEEDO]

Prowl around here (http://www.fcpa.com/products/hard-drives/) and see what you can find about a warranty...;)

Here (http://www.fcpa.com/warranties/warranty-information/limited-warranty-summary.html) also.

SPEEDO

[DocEvi1]

In PCZone there was a similar problem a while back. The solution ultimately was to get a new drive however as a quick fix it suggested connecting the drive and as it starts up (when it is supposed to spin) wrench it to the left or right (I can't remember the direction).
The article suggested this would bump start the drive and allow you to get your stuff off but was unsuitable for use.

I have never done this myself however.

Stefan

[badgern]

Thanks all,

I'll give your ideas a try! I have tried that site SPEEDO, thanks.. seems I may have a 3 year warranty on it so I've written to their service dept, will wait for a reply..

[G Ray88]

Badgern, if you have information that you need on the HD, you may want to check at www.ontrack.com they have a data recovery service that might help, although it is expensive. Good Luck