i have a western digital 60gb hard drive. when i switched on this morning i had a message 'disk boot failure - please insert system disk' during bootup. I have no floppy in the drive. I have checked the bios settings and it is not detecting the hard drive. i have tried a new bios battery with the same results. i have disconnected and reconnected power and data cables and tried a second ide cable. I downloded western digital Data Lifeguard Tools 11 Diagnostic tools but this was unable to detect my hard drive either. Hard drive is clicking every 30 secs or so with or without data cable attached. Have tried another hard drive and this works fine. Sounds like hard drive is broken????
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not detecting hard drive
- Thread starter burtysoft
- Start date
IslandCustom
IS-IT--Management
Sounds like it. Anytime a hard drive makes a clicking noise, particularly at a regular interval, something isn't right. As a LAN Administrator, it's been my experience that a non-booting hard drive that clicks is a dead hard drive.
- Thread starter
- #3
IslandCustom
IS-IT--Management
There are certainly data recovery companies that could retrieve the data, but they're quite expensive. If the drive wasn't spinning at all, I'd suggest freezing it and then trying it -- an old trick to get a stuck hard drive moving again. Even as a slave drive, I doubt it would be accessible. Unfortunately, hard drive failures are a fairly common occurrence. I don't trust them so I run in RAID 1, which provides a duplicate drive so if one dies, the other keeps on going. And I back up, too.
I suggest you search the web for possible ways to retrieve the data.
I suggest you search the web for possible ways to retrieve the data.
Well, i can tell you that i am familiar with that clicking noise, and you have a dead h drive.
I am also familiar with the freezing trick.
What you do is to put your bad h drive in a baggie and take as much air out as you can to avoid ice crystals, then put it in the freezer overnight, or at least 4 hours.
Then have your computer all ready to go as you have to do this fast. First install another hard drive as slave and then take your hard drive out of the freezer and install it and boot into windows. Then you can move as much data as you can onto your other hard drive. You can do this a few times and then it just wont work any longer. If you have to put the drive back in the freezer, usually about 3 to 4 hrs in the freezer will do.
Sometimes dropping the drive on its side edge or its corner will do the trick as well, or a sharp rap on its side with a large screwdriver. But the freezer trick works the best. I have done this twice over the years.
Good luck.
Sometimes swapping the circuit board from a good, same hard drive to the bad drive will work too, but that may not be the case for a hard drive making the clicking sound, more for a drive that is completely dead and its the circuit board that is bad.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
I am also familiar with the freezing trick.
What you do is to put your bad h drive in a baggie and take as much air out as you can to avoid ice crystals, then put it in the freezer overnight, or at least 4 hours.
Then have your computer all ready to go as you have to do this fast. First install another hard drive as slave and then take your hard drive out of the freezer and install it and boot into windows. Then you can move as much data as you can onto your other hard drive. You can do this a few times and then it just wont work any longer. If you have to put the drive back in the freezer, usually about 3 to 4 hrs in the freezer will do.
Sometimes dropping the drive on its side edge or its corner will do the trick as well, or a sharp rap on its side with a large screwdriver. But the freezer trick works the best. I have done this twice over the years.
Good luck.
Sometimes swapping the circuit board from a good, same hard drive to the bad drive will work too, but that may not be the case for a hard drive making the clicking sound, more for a drive that is completely dead and its the circuit board that is bad.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
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