HDD not detected 1

[NNNNN]

My computer was working fine, I was browsing the net then it crashed - shut itself down! and started to reboot
but the system could not detect the HDD
I went in to the BIOS and tried to detect it but still no good.
I even removed the HDD and put it in another computer went through the BIOS but still no good
I then tried changed the jumpers to the slave drive position and tried the BIOS again but still no good. I tried every jumper position but still no good.
Its a 40gb hard drive
It would be nice if I could get it to function again but to be honest I can live without it BUT there is one very important file on there which I desperately need
Is there any way on earth of retrieving this file

Thanks

 

[Dreamland]

NNNNN,

If you've eliminated the motherboard, BIOS, cable and jumper settings, then you're left with the drive itself being bad. In the crudest sense, you can think of your drive as having two major components: 1) the circuit board (controller) and 2) everything else sealed in the shell (disks, motor, heads, etc.). Given how you've described the failure, it sounds like it's related to the circuit board rather than the drive internals. (Just a guess, of course)

If you're especially technical or know someone who is, there's a sort of last-ditch method that *sometimes* works, but don't get your hopes up. The curcuit boards are fairly modular and can usually be removed without much effort from the drive shell itself. If you can find a working drive with a controller board identical to yours, then you can try swapping out yours with the other drives.

*If* it was the controller to begin with, and *if* you got an identical board, and *if* you haven't zapped it when swapping out, then it *may* bring your drive back to life.

This highly risky method means finding an buying a drive with an identical controller, voiding any warranty for *both* drives by messing with their controllers at all, and ending up with only the slim possibility of success. The only upside is that you can move the good controller back and still have one good drive.

This is *not* a step-by-step description of how to do this, only an overview of how it works in theory. The entire process is a bit more involved than this, varies by drive and manufacturer and impossible to detail fully here (nor would I try). If it's really important data, then you need to shell out several hundred to the pros. For more deatils, Google around.