Dead Hard Drive 1

[UUVGuy]

I have a brand new Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 320 GByte PATA hard drive that has suddenly stopped working. It is no longer seen by the bios on the original computer or on another computer it was temporarily installed in. It does power up and makes the usual start up noises but that's as far as it goes. It had a companion Western Digital that now refuses to even spin up. I find it unusual for 2 drives to fail at the same time but I can't find a reason. The PSU voltages are normal and the CD/DVD drives all function normally as well.
Is there any way to hook it up to an external controller to recover any data on it or do I just RMA the thing?

 

[dseaver]

Does the WD work when the Seagate is disconnected?

 

[UUVGuy]

Nope. The WD is deader than a door nail.
The Seagate doesn't work in slave mode either. It was the main boot drive with the WD as the slave. I tried the Seagate as a slave in another machine but no joy with it either.

 

[bummper]

What's wrong with Cable Select? Then you can try it anywhere on the cable. Forget the Master/Slave settings.

Initially, it sounds like the WD had fried and possibly taken the Seagate with it, or visa versa. Or, they both got equally zapped. Normal PSU doesn't mean there wasn't static or a spike even though those are longshots.

Does the Seagate show up in the BIOS? Correctly?

Can you see it at a DOS prompt on the second machine or in (assuming XP) Disk Manager?

Do you have the SeaTools CD to run diagnostics?

Better yet, Spinwrite? (It's downloadable, but there is a fee$)

Surf for MHDD, put it on a boot floppy and run those tests. This program is great.

Will another borrowed drive show up on the machine where they had died? (i.e., is the controller working?) Don't use anything valuable until you are sure of the controller and PSU. Or, switch the CD units and see if they show up in that IDE channel.

Have you changed cables? 80's only, no 40's.

Invest in one of these (or any equivalent)if you're getting into testing HDDs:

Coolmax Multifunction Converter

http://www.coolmaxusa.com/extenclosure.asp?item=converter

They can be found local retail most places.

If the HDD won't read the internal disks, you will need to get it to a data recovery outfit if the disk has extremely valuable stuff you can't afford to lose. You are now talking BIG BUCKS.

Even swapping the IDE board will generally not work reliably, since the drive was individually mapped at the factory during low level preparation. I've never ever had luck with this supposed technique.

 

[sagobogger]

Does anyone still use SpinRite? It was great back in the days of small disks, but the last time I tried it for a dodgy 20 gig one it was going to take about 200 hours to process. I guess if you have critical data and no backup that would be worth a try.

 

[UUVGuy]

bummper,
The Seagate does NOT show up in the bios on either machine I tried it on. I DID use the cable select setting but I only know how to describe it as Master/Slave even on the cable. It was the boot drive on the original machine and I put it in the slave position on the cable in the second machine.
It does not show up in disk management or in My Computer on the second machine. The data on the drive isn't critical but it will take several days to reinstall all the games my son had loaded on it. Oh well.
I have the SeaTools CD but since it doesn't show up in bios or in disk management, it won't work on the disk since it won't see it.
I haven't tried another drive in the original machine yet, That is one of the first steps for today.
Tried a different 80 wire cable, no joy.

 

[wahnula]

UUVguy,

I would NOT try another drive on the suspect machine, I would first try your "dead" HDDs in another machine. If there is a problem with the PSU or ATA controller no sense throwing good drives after bad. Unless, of course, you're like me and have a closetful of refuse-to-die 3-4GB HDDs that are great for troubleshooting.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[dseaver]

You could also pick up an external enclosure and see if you can get the data off of it that way.

 

[ceh4702]

I have an XP machine at home that I worked on. You would turn it on and sometimes it would see the hard drive and report errors and sometimes it was as if it tried to boot and it would just give up. I even took it completely apart and assumed it was the CPU going bad. It turned out I had 2 hard drives and one of them was dead. Somehow the way the computer was set up the computer would not work with the dead hard drive even though the other hard drive was good. This might have something to do with how the IDE hard drives connect on the same cable, so the bad hard drive keeps the good hard drive from being detected, because there is not primary hard drive or something like that.

So after cleaning the CPU cooler and applying new CPU Thermal Grease on the cooler and putting it back together and using both hard drives and the same problem crops up. So I took both hard drives out and try just one hard drive and it works fine. Doh! Why didnt I try that first!

I think the way I had it hooked up is with 2 hard drives using Cable Select Jumpers. I was using an Asus A7N8X Rev 2 motherboard.

So my suggestion is to take both hard drive out and see if you get to the bios screen and an error for no valid disk. Then try one hard drive at a time to see if one hard drive works. When all else fails take the computer apart and start over one piece of hardware at a time.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[bummper]

If it won't show in the BIOS on multiple machines, then I would acknowledge that it is dead and the IDE has fried. It's not fair to blame the WD, but based on past experience with them, I would venture to say it flaked on you and took out it's connected neighbor, the Seagate. If it's under warranty, you might get it replaced no questions asked.

Drives are relatively cheap nowadays. Next time, grab one you can clone once the system is freshly loaded and setup the way you want it. Then if this ever happens again, you are not starting from scratch. Just changing to a cloned drive should not trigger Windows activation so you should be OK. I make a clean clone of all my critical machines and when one goes wrong, I just clone it back to a fresh start. "All to easy..."

Good Luck.

 

[UUVGuy]

Y'all are not going to believe this!!!
First, I hooked up an old IBM 10 gig HD and the bios in my son's machine recognized it right off, so I knew it wasn't the mobo, or the cable.
Now for the unbelievable part. Last night I was lurking in various forums here and one individual mentioned putting his HD in the freezer and it worked. Figuring I had nothing to loose, I put the Seagate in the deep freeze over night and then took it out this morning. This afternoon, I hooked it up right after the IBM drive experiment and low and behold, IT WORKS!!! I have a feeling that there may be some sort of thermal protection on the mounted HD controller card or something as it was quite warm when I pulled it out last night and now it is chugging along just fine right now and has done a completer virus and spyware scan, and is defragging as I write this.
I had an old 80 gig Maxtor do something similar on a new computer so I just sent the whole machine back and they reported that the drive worked fine when they got it. It's still working in another maching so go figure.

AFA the WD being on the same cable as the Seagate, I tried each, one at a time in the machine so I don't think the WD prevented the Seagate from working, but I do think it may have caused it to overheat.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[HiTechRedNeck82]

I know this might sound crazy, but for the drive that won't spin up, stick it in the freezer for a few hours and try it again. You have to move fast though. Sometimes when the drive won't spin up it is because the bearing on the motor has gone bad. When you cool it down the metal contracts and sometimes will let it spin up. Does not always work, but I have gotten data back several times using this method.

Jason

http://www.jrmarshall.com

"Assumption is the mother of all F*** ups."

 

[bummper]

I was going to mention the freezer trick, but it has never ever worked for me.

BTW, I'd still clone it while it is running.

Glad you got it solved. Nice.

 

[ikenna123]

My PC was very slow so decided to format it but the hard disk couldn't come up afterwards. Please I need a solution so as to use my hard disk again.

 

[UUVGuy]

Since you formatted it, all the data is lost anyway. It would be cheaper to get another hard drive.

 

[G0AOZ]

ikenna123, to get a half decent response you need to start a new thread for your question, not tag it on the bottom of someone else's. New thread should give details of your computer, operating system to be used, etc., and exactly how you have formatted the hard disk drive...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[gbaughma]

If the drive isn't being seen by the bios, then the integrated controller has probably gone bad.

What's wrong with Cable Select? Then you can try it anywhere on the cable. Forget the Master/Slave settings.

*IF* you have a cable that DOES cable selection. You can't leave drives on cable select and use a "standard" IDE cable.



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[bummper]

It sounded like he was swapping jumpers, which could have added to his problem. I doubt he got a new 320 GB as a bare drive, so the 80-wire cable was most probably there from the box. I was going with the odds here. Then again, maybe he had a 40-wire with #28 snipped, thus, cable select capable. <g>

Thanks for raising a good point though.

 

[LawnBoy]

Doesn't CS also require the 8 data wires be reversed between connectors? Or am I thinking of floppies?


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[gbaughma]

LawnBoy:
That's a floppy.

Here's a good article.

http://ocliteracy.com/techtips/ide-cable-select.html

Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com