BIOS doesnt detect hdd, help please

[tesa]

something similiar happened to somebody I know, this person asked me if I could check her computer, her hdd can't be recognized in the bios... it was working properly for 2 yrs, but some days ago the hdd was dead... I tried to put this hdd in other cpu's and it can't be recognized by any bios... and if I put another hdd in her computer it is easily recognized by the bios, so I think her hdd is dead, and I was hoping to receive suggestions to see if I can recover some data out of her hdd.

thanks

 

[edfair]

Is the drive spinning? Pull the drive and hold it in your hand with power only while you power the system up. You should feel vibration if the drive spins up. If it isn't spinning you have motor problems.
If it is spinning, does it make some buzzing sounds. On spin up it should do some seeks while it is calibrating.
If spinning and calibration , then you probably have a board problem. Some have had success in dire emergency of swapping the board with a like drive. This is also a potential fix for the other potential problems. But I would not count on it for sure.
The last resort is to send it to a data recovery company. It is expensive , but if there is critical information at stake, price is the last question you want to ask. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[tesa]

Hi edfair
When I do what you say in your msg, the hdd dont make any noise nor vibrates, I agree with you that it might be a motor problem... why does this happen to hdd? I would like to avoid this to happen again...
thank
tesa

 

[edfair]

They die. Some die young, some die old, but they all die. From heat, from trace evaporation, from internal shorts, from resistors opening, capacitors shorting. They are not simple machines, at least in the production, and any one thing going wrong will render them scrap.
The best thing you can do is to plan for it happening. Backup! Backup! Backup! Know how the system was assembled and what programs were installed and where the data is stored. Document what is put on the machine. That way you can recreate it when the time comes.
Then there is one of my favorite sayings:
"Backup means a totally different thing to someone who has lost a hard drive than it does to someone who never has." Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.