Hard drive failure - how to fix it? 1

[gbdru2]

Anyone point me in the right direction?

A power failure caused my PC to crash. on resumption the primary hard drive failed.

I restored the system by swapping the primary drive with the slave drive and reinstalling windows (XP Pro)

So data on original slave drive is recovered but the original primary (Maxtor 80GB) is still not responding.

BIOS recognises the slave drive on boot up (i.e come up in the list of drives available) but then gives a 'slave drive failure' message. F1 boots the system ok but I want to recover the data on the slave drive.

Anyone any tips on software etc to fix it?

Cheers

 

[pweegar]

You might want to do a google search for data recovery tools. Probably won't be cheap. And in the future, you may want to think about doing regular backups of your important data. Back up to DVD/Cd-rom is a fairly easy and inexpensive way to go.

 

[Lemon13]

give it a try with file recovery, it´s free.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

 

[roguerunner]

I had a similar issue in recent with a brand new Dell. It took more than a week for the expert techs at Dell and myself to find that the IDE Cable was the failed component. They had already sent out a replacement RAM stick and were getting ready to swap out the mother board. If I guess right, the stubborn drive does wind up and initialize the Drive's on-board chip signals to the CPU "We are up and spinning". It is piped out to the display during POST that the drive is there. This is not the case though. If POST reports an "F1 fail" for the sick drive it means that whatever is comming down that cable the CPU inturprets it as "babble" and will eather have it fixed or ignored but wont listen any more. So I Wonder if your drive assignment is for the Babble Drive is Automatic or Manual. In System BIOS, maybe disable the Slave but keep it on the cable powered, F1 to the OS make certain that the OS cant see it; also keep a look to see if the system is slugish, could indicate that the some of the Babble is slipping into the OS and that could be a good sign. It could mean that the drive is working just dazzed, confussed, like being intoxicated but not dead. Shut down then set the Slave detect to Auto and reboot. If the slave is not recognized at that point, most likely your BIOS had a memory storage of what it was to expect. Reason is: If BIOS reports an F1 to boot with an F2 to enter BIOS odds are that the slave or the master is on CEL (cable select) and the BIOS must refuse one of them to resolve the conflict. One of the drives is stepping on the bus. If that checks out, then I suggest switching the slave drive to the alternate IDE channel, most likely channel 2. If you have other drives on channel 2 disable them and put the sick drive on the second channel alone, reduces confusion of who gets to own the bus. Also make certain that your boot designation in System BIOS is set up to boot up to the Primary Master drive first. Also note that as things are both of the described drives are most likely formatted to play the role of "active". Only one drive can command the Master Boot Record. So if you isolate the sick drive on the secondary IDE channel, make sure it is jumpered to be a secondary slave drive, furthest away from being MBR; and that, BIOS knows to initialize, "first from the Primary Master drive". The failed drive still spins up (not physically damaged from what could have been a surge when power was lost) drive management, fdisk, sysinfo, or even MSD in DOS 6.0 might just recognize the hardware. Regaining access to the data is another issue. Because.... Than the troubles become a software issue, no longer problems with the hardware.
If none of this works and you still believe that the sick drive is mechanically functional. Than put the problem device, "Only" into another machine to test. If it works in another machine than I believe the issue points to: 1. hardware component in the case of the original machine -- IDE Cable, one of the IDE Channels, BIOS firmware, etc. 2. Software, unlikely - still, Maybe XP pro malfunctioned it's program in the old OS or the new OS and somehow bamboozled the original Master Drive to Babble Garbage down the control bus. Assuming that you don't have a second computer to test the lame drive in. You could pull out the functioning master and replace it with another drive thathas another operating system on it. Don't have another hard drive? Than Consider backing up the functionl DH and fdisk the drive, install something else or work with a boot floppy as an alternate OS interface to the sick HD. You could use the CD ROM as bootable medium to reach the lame hard drive but that would be a frustating far reach, I bet.
If you have no money and no alternate hardware, no osiloscope, unable to swap in and out parts you know work on a fully working system; which is the most conclusive way to issolate a hardware problem; and all you know your configuration is set correctly, than find a buddy and carefully borrow his parts to trouble shoot your system. If you do this be sure that you know exactly what you are doing and exactly what you have done so you can insure that another computer does not fall victum.
Keepin mind that there does probably will come a conclusion that it is time to let go of the data on the disk and barrel into the patrician phase to just recover the disk space on the old drive. Of course I know that there is something on that disk that you would spend hours trying to recreate if you were to start over again or something there that in jeopardy of being lost forever if you give in. So let me tell you that the aforementioned does not cover the entire spectrum of possible options that are available to a determined individual, such as yourself. I think my best advice right here is after you have tried all these things twice, reseating plugs, cables, jumpers, configure every combination available in the BIOS. This includes pulling out all the working drives and trying to access "limp leg" as a master on the Primary Channel from just a DOS Boot Floppy or maybe an old norton utilities disk. Try to get you hands on a copy of " partition magic" and shuffle your partitions to where the data you seek becomes accessible. That too would be a risk to the data and an outside chance at best. It can be sent off to the clean room lab for data recovery or reformatted latter. Can you tell I have been where you are before, and don't like to lose to a electronic metal malfunction? Than I suggest, pull out the lame drive put it into a antistatic bag, store it away where it is safe and walk away again. Take the rest of the night/day off. Go to the drive manufactures website and exercise your warranty, seek their support for ideas. Upgrade the BIOS firmware. Comb the internet for some key piece of recovery software, Come back and see us again with a tale of glory or a succinct detailed and concise accounting of where you stand in your "Wohws". This is how I learned not to keep anything important on the hard drive that I am running in the day to day. Remember that even if you back up your data, that can and will eventually fail also given enough time. I am certain that the correct answers will occur to you. On the other hand maybe the drive is fried. If it is than, can't hurt to still not try everything that you can. It is good to exercise the mind, remember to learn from everything that you've done.
This is my first post upon this site, or any site for that matter. Forgive me if I failed to use TGML (Tecumseh Group Mark-up Language). I know not how to use that yet. So I will just conclude with happy thoughts, hope that this helps and submit "SMILES"...

N-gemini-O

 

[zbnet]

You don't need to know TGML to post readable posts, just a few Return characters to make separate paragraphs would go a long way to making your posting more readable.

 

[Saradine]

First thing you should always do in this case is check your cables. They are pretty easy to break when you are switching them around. If those are good then I would try to unmount the drive in "admintools/computer management/ or whatever (im not at my home PC and this comps admin rights are locked out) but you will hit something called disk manager inside one of the tools.

In there you need to right click the drive and unmount it. This will kill any data on it but at least you might get the drive back.

After it remounts just try to format/partition and if that doesnt work youll have to f-disk it.

I hope this fixes it but it could be just about anything.

Saradine

 

[gbdru2]

Roguerunner,

Haven't managed to try evrything in the list but just for sheer weight of info then thanks...

I have managed to run powermax tests on the drive amd surprise surprise it failed (fyi, Powermax is a diagnostoc tool from Maxtor) - it gave me a diagnostic code de64a0a0 which if nothing else enables me to get a replacemnt drive from Maxtor... but that doesnt help the data on the drive does it ;-)

it failed on partition information read and SMART enable function... does that suggest anything... ?

PC Inspector -File recovery gives me a memory address violation half way through the scan so not sure if its the drive or the software.. doesnt see the files anyway..

Also trying ActiveUndelete and Partition Magic but no joy as yet

I've tried swapping the cables from the primary disk and trying to boot from an XP CD..

We'll press on... this could become a hobbby in itself...

 

[getugly]

Hi,

I just had almost the exact same problem, except my drive was a Maxtor 30GB. I did the RMA thing with Maxtor and now have a new drive since mine was still under warranty but i would still like to be able to recover anything off of the bad drive.

Did you ever find any software that would allow you too recover anything? I tried the Maxtor tools and few others but no workie. I installed the drive on another machine (secondary IDE master) and teh BOIS will recognize the drive but after booting into Win2k it does not see the drive. Also, the drive LED stays lighted constantly so i think i really might be screwed on this one. Might be a major physical impairment.

Anyway, if you find any recovery software that works, please post it. I'll do the same. I'm downloading Ontrack EasyRecovery demo right now to see if it works.

Thanks...