Haroldm814

Hey everyone, just wanted to say I'm a new member here but I have looked at the forum alot to get answers for previous problems and wanted to say you guys are great!

That out of the way onto my question!

I have a 400GB Western Digital SATA drive that for some reason when I plug it into my computer the computer will not boot, so I decided to go the route of using an external enclosure.

I plug the drive into the enclosure and turn it on and connect the USB to my computer and it says new hardware detected blah blah blah your hardware is ready to use. So i go into My Computer and I see Removable drives H and J. Now the enclosure I'm using is this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1206141490782

It has card readers and stuff so that's why it has 2 removable drives show up. Problem is my hard drive isn't either of those! The hard drive is spinning and is powered and seems normal except for the fact it's not detected.

Any ideas guys???

-Harold

wiseleo

The drive is likely dead.

Describe "computer will not boot". Did the system simply power down immediately after starting up? That's a symptom of a short in the drive and tells me that drive electronics repair is required.

If you know how to use a soldering iron, repairable. If not, pretty expensive to fix.

You can eliminate the Windows confusion from the picture by running the procedure in my signature. That will tell you definitively if the drive is readable or if it's a Windows fault.

If it's not readable, then you got a very expensive problem.

Haroldm814

The computer shows my ASUS motherboard screen and basically is just a black screen after the fact. I have put the HDD in other computers and the same thing happens. Just to clear up any confusion my computer runs fine and the disk in question is NOT my C:\ drive it's just a storage disk.

I'm gonna try a linux live cd in about 30 minutes and see if that gives me access to the disk hopefully it will. If it does I will do what your sig says. I read it and it seems fairly simple except for the fact I don't understand if it makes and image like an iso? or what?

wiseleo

Rather than trying a random live CD, try my procedure. It'll be a much faster way. :)

You'll probably want to do it on another computer.

Deleted090308

Is there any data on the drive?

If not - have you tried formatting the drive in Disk management?
It won't show up in "My computer" until it's been formatted.

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP

Haroldm814

I was thinking about it but I am not sure if I have the proper hardrive space available on other hard drives lying around.


Yes there is data on the drive

Deleted090308

Post a screenshot of disk management.

How to post a screenshot.

Haroldm814

Dude, I know how to post a screen shot and I know how to use disk management. The hard drive does not appear there at all. No unallocated space, just my 2 Optical drives and my 2 current hard drives.

Deleted090308

Just trying to be helpful. I'll leave you with wiseleo. Good luck.

Haroldm814

I no I appreciate the help, I just thought I had stated earlier that it wasn't being seen in any way shape or form.

I can tell you guys that it DOES spin and it kinda goes in a cycle.

It spins up and makes the normal whir, then it *click*s and the whir stops, then the process is repeated.

Now I'm leaning towards a mechanical failure rather than an electrical failure but what do you guys think?

wiseleo

If testdisk sees it when you run it as part of my procedure, then try to clone a piece of the drive onto any other disk. You can even monitor the progress in real-time by "cat /mnt/windows/image.dd" in another Linux terminal. If you see alphabetic patterns, that's bad information.

Hit CTRL-C in ddrescue to abort the process. That lets you use any capacity disk as image disk for testing purposes.

As long as you don't hear screeching sounds, you won't cause more harm by trying.

If my procedure will not see it, then you have reached the limits at what is possible at home. Sorry, but you'll basically need to send it to either one of my competitors, or me. This will be expensive.

Good luck. :)

Haroldm814

Haha well thank you and I will try your method but if it doesn't work sending it out is out of the question because of money.

I was thinking of swapping the platter out with another harddrive to see if it will work and basically just for the fun of it.

wiseleo

You corrected the symptoms. It's not a short on the drive's controller.

Since you gave up on the data, I can only wish you luck. :)

Haroldm814

what do you mean I corrected the symptoms? And I didn't give up hah I do want it.

Thanks =]

wiseleo

I am not here to flame. :) If my process doesn't work, there is nothing you can do. This is a 4-platter/8-head drive. I hate working on those even with all my equipment.