hard drive failure

[ReefDogg]

I have a wd 13gig hard drive thats dying on me and I just bought a new wd 40gig hd to replace it. Thats working fine. I'm trying to revive the 13gig so I can retrieve some lost files. I've tried many ways to get the drive to boot up enough so I can just get some files. Is there any other way to retrieve lost files from a hard drive, or is just toast!

These are my setting in CMOS on the 13 gig.
- IDE HDD Auto Detect (enter)
- IDE Secondary - Auto
- Access Mode - LBA ( I have some bad sectors on the drive)

Even when in CMOS, and hit enter to auto detect the drive, it come up at times. But when I save it and boot up again, it still doesn't find it?

[rangeral]

Could try starting up with a bootdisk and at the A: prompt type fdisk /mbr see if anything happens.

[arthur888]

If the mobo doesn't detect the drive after a reboot it's useless to try fdisk, it won't see the drive either. Does the drive make noise (rotation, seek operations)? If it does it might be a rotten contact in the IDE connector or something like that. Post the exact description of the problem, maybe I can help.

By the way, fdisk /mbr is dangerous!
http://www.cknow.com/vtutor/vtfdiskmbr.htm

Arthur

[rangeral]

As the article mentions generally it is safe and most users who come to these sites are not using security measures that he speaks of, though he does fail to mention that there is a backup copy of the partition table in the event the first one gets trashed which should help you get back up and running but if both tables are corrupted then you do have a dead drive.

Something you can try is to put the drive in the freezer for an hour then install back as the master with the second drive as slave which can buy you enough time to pull the files off before it quits again, worth a shot if you have no other recourse.

[ReefDogg]

I thought if I did fdisk, it would reformatt my hard drive and that would erase everything? I've tried tapping the drive a few times with a screwdriver and it does make a sound when the system starts up. But it just doesn't auto detect, I can still detect in CMOS the first time, but when I reboot....windows doesn't find it?

Put the hard drive in the freezer for an hour? I've never heard of it, but I can give it a try. Do I need to do let it cool for some time or so before installing it back in?

Thanks!

[rangeral]

Put it in the case as soon as you take it out of the freezer no different than your car radio sitting out in freezing weather and it working. Its helped a few technicians working in large corporate offices who have been told by their boss to get that data or else, ha. One guy was sweating bullets and it worked for him.:)

[arthur888]

Does the drive work in other systems?

[ReefDogg]

I tried the freezer, part but that didnt work either. After I installed the drive as the master (usual) and started the system, it would recognize the hdd. But when I went to cmos and did the auto detect, it found the hdd (I thought cool!). But when I saved the settings and rebooted, it still wouldnt recognize the hdd.

I don't have another system to try it on. What about going in to DOS? But I'm not sure how much luck I would have, if the system is not recognizning the hdd! But the crazy part is that when the hdd is detected in cmos, it now comes up as a 13gig (which it is). But after I reformatted and partioned the bad sectors, it would read as a 10gig? I had the access mode setting at LBA.

[PIETRO]

Go to Western Digital and get the WD Utilities disk. Run the diagnostic program. This maybe able to fix the problem temporarily, my sister had the same type of problem with a 10gig WD. The utility fixed it long enough to get her into Windows and get all important data off. It's worth a shot.

Good Luck!!

[Martingi]

have you tried safe mode, it worked for me when my hard drive really died.

[ReefDogg]

Thanks for the input, but my drive doesn't boot up at all! Even though in cmos it will detect it, but when it restarts again, it can't find it. I'm thinking about maybe taking it a shop where they may more sophisticated tools? Not sure if that will work?

[G Ray88]

ReefDogg

Try going to www.ontrack.com maybe they can help. Good luck.

:)

[ReefDogg]

Hey thanks for the info, I'll give that web site a shot!

[G]

It does sound as if your HDD is on its way out and you probably have only a few attempts to get it right before all data is unrecoverable - unless you are willing to part with a lot of hard-earned cash.

Nevertheless, on reboot the HDD parameters are lost, so you say, so can you confirm that the battery that supplies electrical energy (pompous **** I am) to the NVRAM chip is ok.

I have a PDF file with over 200 ways to recover data from a dying or, supposedly, dead HDD. PM me if you want it.

G

[ReefDogg]

Thanks for the reply, I wouldnt mind trying some of you files a try if it would help getting some info of my dead hd. I'm not sure, if I would want to shell out alot of cash to recover some info of the drive. I don't thinking some of date is worthing paying alot of money for to recover it. I'll re-install the drive back in to my pc.

Thx,

Gil

[madatthem]

I'm having the same problems with my Western Digital WD Caviar 28400 8 Gig harddrive.

When I add it as a SLAVE, It IS detected in the bios, also during start-up, but right after verifying DMI DATA POOL, it HANGS


When I try installing it as a SINGLE MASTER, it is NOT DETECTED in the BIOS, the system HANGS, telling me to enter system bios, when I manually enter the drive specs, Cylinders, Heads, LBA, etc. then I rebooth, it HANGS and request AGAINto enter BIOS SETUP :(

I tried starting up with a Windows System Disk inthe A:\ drive, but the system nevers goes as far up to detecting drives on boot-up.
So I can't get into the FDISK option

2 days ago there WAS a "CLICKING SOUND" during the boot up ( alth it failed )
But today while trying the suggested options above, the drive is quiet/silent ( means I dont hear the clicking sound I heard 2 days ago )

Anyone with any other solution ?

This is the second Western Digital Harddrive to DIE on me like that with NO warning, it just stopped working few days ago. the system had 2 other drives that still works perfectly


my setup was
8 Gig WD = PRIMARY MASTER
CDR/W Drive on the master cable
40 Gig Maxtor as SECONDARY MASTER
20 Gig Maxtor as SECONDARY SLAVE

The 8 Gig WD was the NEWEST Drive too :(



(keywords)
Western Digital WesternDigital dead drive clicking not working fail data recovery data-recovery datarecovery harddrive failure

[ReefDogg]

I had the same problems, bad sectors, etc... I just dumped wasn't worth the extra expense $$$ to try and get it going. So I bought a new hd.

But what a headache it was!!!

[madatthem]

The harddrive itself isn't important, you can get a new 80 GIG for about $150, its the DATA thats valuable :(

[ReefDogg]

Yeah I know what you mean, I tried for months figuring ways to get the data back. But it all ended up R.I.P.