Broken HD??

[miggetyMike]

I recently ripped the hd outa my system to copy a bunch of files to a new system. i hooked it up as a slave and copied them fine. Then I took it outa that system and set it aside while I worked w/ the new system. When I went to put it back into the original system it wouldn't work. I switched the jumpers back to master and installed in onto the primary IDE channel. When I boot it doesn't register the hard drive in the bios. I KNOW it is hooked up right. The drive doesnt spin up at boot. The doesnt even know its there. Any ideas what could be wrong??Thanks in advance.

[BipolarBill]

Check for bent pins on the drive or a bad cable.

[morpheus kain]

Unconnect all other non-essential power connectors and try a few too. GD I hate bent pins!

[miggetyMike]

I don't think it was the cable because when I tryed hooking it up as a slave in my other system, the whole system would freeze before the post. I'll check for bent pins though. This is really weird. Is there any type of virus that could have gotten into the drive that would make it impossible to boot aka a boot sector virus? But is there one that would make a computer not even recognize a drive? And if so...how do I fix it?

[BipolarBill]

I doubt it. This is a misconfiguration issue 75% of the time and a bad drive the other 25%.

[miggetyMike]

The only reason I the though of a virus enters my head is I hooked up this hd to one of my systems in order to save some files from a pc that was seriously comepletly infested w/ viruses. I wasn;t using any protection and had it permanently online w/ cable.... I needed to reformat. so I hooked this drive up copied some files i needed and reformatted the other drive. When I went to put the drive in my old system...this is when it failed.

[BipolarBill]

In that case, Zap the drive and then FDISK and FORMAT it:

http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/zap.exe

[miggetyMike]

Will this work if my computer tells me that there is no drive present? If I install it to primary master....when i boot....under primary master it says none....my comp wont even recognize it.

[Rodney]

I have had this happen twice in my life, both recently. In both cases, the IDE drive was DEAD. It was not a cable or configuration issue. Both hard drives had to be RMA'ed. I know it was not a virus. The only other option is some type of possible power problem that zapped them. But, I am not very convinced that was the case. I would love to hear theories from some hard drive experts.

[miggetyMike]

awwwwwwwwww ****!!!

[bluemoon]

First make sure your hdd spins by hooking up power connector only.
If it spins then do a low level format using factory utilities.
Although your pc can't recognize the disk,it doesn't mean the zap disk or the "factory low format disk" can't see the drive either.

It would be a good idea to write protect your floppy before you shove it in for low formating.

Only when your factory disk can't pick up the hdd then you may have a problem.

Good luck

[miggetyMike]

Allright. Throw the virus idea out the window....we're starting fresh here. I know whats wrong.....you guys were right it was a pin. I didn't notice because this pin was not bent....it was pushed all the way through the holder and out the back. I looked at the drive under a microscope to see it. Well now i think the problem is just fixing it. I pushed the pin back out into its little home and it lines up next to all of its friends.....but......When I was pushed back...it broke from its channel...or whatever you call it....can I just soldier the two parts back together?

[bluemoon]

Glad that you found the problem.

What else choice do you have??Buy a new one??

Again,good luck soldering

[miggetyMike]

LOL good point......thanks for the help guys!!

[morpheus kain]

Good lock with the solder job! I hate that stuff!!

[mcjamesk]

start with a great big vice, tighten the drive down real tight then solder away ( make sure you use enough solder to hold the little pin ) then take it out of vice, throw it in trash can, go to your local comp. store and buy a new one

[mcjamesk]

just joking, if your real steady and dont use to much solder it should work long enough to get your info off it

[miggetyMike]

You don't think this could be a permanent solution. I'm having my friend's dad do it. He works for some company that produces the computer chips for laser guided missles and stuff.....he said it would be no problem at all.....is there any hope at a full recovery?

[BipolarBill]

I'd say so. I did the same thing once on a DVD drive. I grabbed the sunken pin with some needlenose pliers and yanked it back out. It's worked fine since with no solder.

[elroy]

If the drive is still under warranty you might want to reconsider the solder job as it may void any warranty if it is visible. Just depends how valuable the data is. Because if you send it in for RMA the data is gone.

[miggetyMike]

lol...........well RMA wasn't an option......the warranty ran out so I had nothin to lose. I gave the drive to my friends dad to fix but to no avail.....he did a great job and it looks like it did originally...but when I boot the comp still wont even recognize the hd......I can hear the drive spin BARELY...not like normal....any other ideas b4 I trash it??

[morpheus kain]

Send it to me if you decide to trash it. I'm trying to teach my buddy about pc's and a dead hd would be an asset. I'll pay shipping!

[matt50]

Why not try to change all ur hdd pins to CS..??

From there.. connect the master IDE cable to the bootable hdd and the slave IDE cable to the 2nd hdd.

Honestly.. CS kinda makes me less worried as it's all auto detect by the POST/CMOS.

Gd Luck..

Cheers.
Singapore..

[miggetyMike]

I don't think the cs idea will work....a little too late. The pin is dead. But I noticed another thing. When working on the hd I noticed that this specific drive had two parts that were easily separated. One was the chip part w/ the ide connector. This is the broken part. And the second part is the drive itself....you know the big part where all the info is stored. I was wondering if I bought the identical drive and substituted the new chip part fpr the old chip part if I could get my data back. Or maybe even I could purchase a new chip part and just fix the drive.....I mean the chip part even has a little lever to separate the two parts...almost looks as if it was intended to be switched if necessary...any ideas??

[BipolarBill]

If the data is really important to you, go for it. It's a rare thing in this household when such drastic measures are really necessary.