awsome. i have to act like a n00b and make a help thread.

[Signa]

if you didnt think me a moron before, you likly will now.

a few days ago, my largest hard drive stoped working, and i lost about 150+ gigs of data. unlike most hard drive issues i am familer with, this crash was completely sudden and unexpected. it appears the only problem is that the BIOS wont recognize that there is a hard drive plugged in, which makes things all the more upsetting for me, because my data is most likely all there, just inaccessable.

what im wondering is if anyone knows A LOT about hard drives and if there is a way to force the computer to see the drive. im assuming that im just plain screwed, but its worth asking you all because one of you might know somthing that will help me.

thanks.

[Mels_Smileys45]

You acted like a noob when you didn't back that shit up! Just messin' with ya, I feel for you. I have a hard drive I cant get access to right now with files I should have backed up. Not 150+ gigs though, thats gotta hurt!

[Signa]

yah, i had some really irreplacable things in there. some video clips of my hyperactive ADD brother, a collection of MP3s that will be sorely missed, and worst of all, the flash movie that i worked on for about 3 years. it was quite funny too, it was about final fantasy VII and cloud and zack killing telletubies 'n' stuff. well done at the time.

[d3ft0n3s]

manually set the cyliders and heads?

thats al i can think of other then sending it off to a specalist to get it retreived.

[Signa]

sadly, i looked for that, but i coudlnt find it in my BIOS to try it. even if i could, i dont know what values i would have to use. i suppose i could find out if i ever found how to do it.

[ferrarimodena360]

it appears the only problem is that the BIOS wont recognize that there is a hard drive plugged in, which makes things all the more upsetting for me, because my data is most likely all there, just inaccessable.

what im wondering is if anyone knows A LOT about hard drives and if there is a way to force the computer to see the drive.

thanks.

IMO
your partition is NTFS thats why u cant access the drive, when ur booting from command prompt
make this hdd a slave to a pc running 2000 or xp, and ur data would show up

Hope this helps

[vipp]

I assume you've checked to make sure all connections are secure? I once 'lost' a drive, but all that had happened was that the plug had come just a bit loose. It didn't look loose, but it was.

[Infinite blasphemy]

I had the same problem, check the cables.

[Signa]

IMO
your partition is NTFS thats why u cant access the drive, when ur booting from command prompt
make this hdd a slave to a pc running 2000 or xp, and ur data would show up

Hope this helps

could you go a little more in-depth as to what you mean? from what i have done, half of the condidtions are met, since i am running XP, and it is already a slave drive. i havnt tried booting to the promt yet, but i dont see the point if the BIOS doesnt see the drive.

and vipp, thanks for the suggestion. some times the easiest things are overlookable. but if it was a simple connection problem, it would be pretty weird to have it *look* connected in the other 3 PCs i tested the drive in.

[ferrarimodena360]

could you go a little more in-depth as to what you mean? from what i have done, half of the condidtions are met, since i am running XP, and it is already a slave drive. i havnt tried booting to the promt yet, but i dont see the point if the BIOS doesnt see the drive.

and vipp, thanks for the suggestion. some times the easiest things are overlookable. but if it was a simple connection problem, it would be pretty weird to have it *look* connected in the other 3 PCs i tested the drive in.

i was suggesting if u hook it up with other pc's but seems u have already tried that, just goto a professional

[silentscream]

i had the same trouble

in the end i opened up the drive and the heads were jammed

with a little wiggling they were ok and i managaed the get the drive working

i backed up all the stuff but i no longer trust the drive so i use it a scratch disk for image and 3d rendering

if all else fails have a look in it

it may just be stuck

if u can get it working for like an hour u can back it all up

Greg

[nukehella]

Have you tried any data recovery progs?Sometimes they will see a drive that is not listed in My Computer.Try Easy Recovery or Getdataback.There are lots of others,but these 2 usually work for me.
Getting 150+GB back is PITA though. I'd just get the stuff off you really want for now and stick the drive in a drawer to be dealt with later(probaly never in my case)

[codePhreak91]

Did you try putting it in a external usb hard drive case?

[DigitalJunkie]

First, did you go into BIOS & write your settings down?

If it is not your cable been loose, I would check the hardware drivers by letting it look for changes automatically in Device Manager. If that still doesn't work, update the BIOS driver if any & have the BIOS automatically check for any hard disk drive(s). Then manually check other settings to values setted before!

[vipp]

could you go a little more in-depth as to what you mean? from what i have done, half of the condidtions are met, since i am running XP, and it is already a slave drive. i havnt tried booting to the promt yet, but i dont see the point if the BIOS doesnt see the drive.

and vipp, thanks for the suggestion. some times the easiest things are overlookable. but if it was a simple connection problem, it would be pretty weird to have it *look* connected in the other 3 PCs i tested the drive in.

Do you have another drive that you can test in that same spot in place of the faulty one? If 3 other pc's 'see' it, and that pc doesn't, it still sounds like some sort of connection problem in that 4th pc. Try a drive from another pc if you can, and see if it works.