WD400EB drive not spinning - DOA?

[awrighty]

I have a Western Digital 40GB drive that up and stopped a few days ago. No loud crash noises, just stopped.

The BIOS still detects the drive id correctly as a WD400EB drive, however, it only says it has 8GB capacity. I changed the BIOS setting from 'auto' to 'manual', but the settings were already correct, and tinkering did nothing to change the capacity listed.

The drive doesn't vibrate, hum, or make any noise. As such, the PC doesn't recognize it (other than to say 'primary master - IDE HARD DRIVE' on bootup and the BIOS menu details above). I've tried new cable, updating BIOS, checking CMOS, power supplies and all that before I realized the drive wasn't spinning. Because the PC (and a friend's so it's not just mine) sees the drive in BIOS, I figured I had a shot.

I have tried some software that is supposed to help, but nothing, windows, ERD boot disks, nothing sees the 40GB drive.

I have an 12GB drive on there now as the master, but would really like to get latest data off my 40gb drive before probably chucking it in the trash.

Any suggestions on getting to spin w/o going to expensive labs? HELP!!!?

I have a 3 month old backup, but would love to save my hind-end on this..... thx.

 

[kcongdon]

If the drive came with a Western Digital utility diskette, try booting from that and run the diagnostics on it. Be careful about which diagnostic you run --- some of them destroy data.

If the drive came without a diskette, check the Western Digital web site for utility downloads.

I had some scary moments with a Western Digital 80GB 7200 rpm a few months back. Ran the diskette diagnostics and scanned for viruses. Didn't find anything, but finally got relief by cleaning the filter on my Antec hard drive cooler.

 

[Phantom123]

Having had problems with 3 WD400EB drives i would recommend you return it to your vendor and get a Maxtor or Seagate drive.
I no longer sell Western Digital due to so many problems with loose platters/heads and boot sector problems.