i got the Dead Hard drive blues

[pow3rslave]

so a while back one of my sata's died. 250 gig, but nothing on it. i cared, but not overly. the yesterday i finally took it out of my case and found it was still in warranty so i mailed it off, free-ish new-ish drive, w00t.

but then today, no boot. just hung on the bios flash screen.

i isolated the problem, another dead 250gB sata. this time full to the brim, with ALL my music. i can boot if it's not plugged in, but plugging it in XP hangs it. i haven't tried in ubuntu, but it didn't like the last one (which did the same thing exactly)

at first i was thinking it was the sata controller on my motherboard, but i just borrowed a sata > usb adaptor. windows sees there's a usb mass storage device plugged in, but no drive mounts.

anyone suggest a recovery means? i could wrangle another 250 to ghost it to, just don't know how?

[greenfoam]

You can take the platters out and put them in another identical drive to recover the data but you need skillz and with expensive modern drives that were too young to die it's not really worth the risk unless it's mission critical data .

You can try spraying freeze spray stuff on the circuit board which sometimes can bring a drive back to life long enough to recover what you want off it.

The reason you are getting dead drives might be your powersupply. I killed 3 drives full of data within a few days once and it ended up being the powersupply killing them. I'd replace it just to be sure

[arrow224]

A trick to try is to put it in the freezer for 10 minutes. For some reason, this works. You may only get 15 minutes, but at least you can put it back in to get another 15..

[AttaBoy]

Never buy generic power supply, (Usually comes with computer cases) they have very bad voltage regulation and they don't produce the watts stated on the sticker.

Always buy good power supplies like Thermaltake, iGreen, and the likes. I learnt the hard way when 2 of my drives died instantly last year. Now I have a 600W Thermaltake with excellent surge protection built in and excellent voltage regulation and auto shut-off in high spikes.

These are a bit expensive but worth in the long run!!!

[matty88]

Instead of booting from it, plug it into a system as a slave if that's possible. It should be able to get your documents if the drive powers up.

[pow3rslave]

power supply is thermaltake, not had any fluctuations or spikes in that.
tried ubuntu last night (plugging in post boot) plugging in as a sata hangs ubuntu, plugging it in via the sata>usb connector recognizes the sata>usb converter, but then nothing.

but last night when pulling the case down, i did find this (it's the end to a molex > twin sata power adaptor that came with the powersupply)

the black pin wasn't 100% out like it is there, but wasn't connecting at all i don't think. the pin in question is an earth, and next to the +5v. can't say for sure that the previous dead drive was on the same power coupling, but it seems likely

[AttaBoy]

I thought SATA drives only have those black SATA power connectors.

[Low_VX_Taxi]

I thought SATA drives only have those black SATA power connectors.

Id say he has a molex to sata converter plug

[azzfox]

Never buy generic power supply, (Usually comes with computer cases) they have very bad voltage regulation and they don't produce the watts stated on the sticker.

Always buy good power supplies like Thermaltake, iGreen, and the likes. I learnt the hard way when 2 of my drives died instantly last year. Now I have a 600W Thermaltake with excellent surge protection built in and excellent voltage regulation and auto shut-off in high spikes.

These are a bit expensive but worth in the long run!!!

Iv been using the generic power supply that came with the case and everything has been running perfectly for over a year so far (and my pc is nearly always on).

Current stats:
Vcore: 1.36v
+12v: 12.03v
+5v: 5.00v
+3.3v: 3.34v

Also found that it has a shut-off feature and works great. Accidentally shorted one of the molex connectors and PC turned off instantly. Turned it back on and nothing was wrong with it.

[holdensupporter2005]

Try the following:

1. connect the drive to another computer as a slave drive that can boot into xp.
2. Put in your windows XP cd and boot off it.
3. When it gets to the FIRST welcome screen press R
4. This will log you into the recovery console.
5. Once you have a command prompt up type CHKDSK /r D:
and press ENTER.
6. This should start the Checkdisk process which will try and fix any errors with the drive as long as they aren't physical problems. It may take a few hours to complete the test. Once it has finished, put it back into your pc and try booting from it.

[burnz]

yep i tried a WD 160 all good for10 month's then dud
so i will not stray from seagate again.
to send the WD for warrenty is dearer than it cost's, bined instead.

[BOY1236]

if it's REALLY important, you can always take it to a spcial computers shop they will recover most of the data was on it

but this will cost you A ****-load of $$$, do you want the stuff that bad ??

[Void]

Ok i belive i have some software for this type of thing
But its at work.
I should have it by this arvo for you

[saber]

Hey pow3rslave, have you tried to use partitioning software like paragon partition manager to see the drive?

You could try this: obtain yourself a copy of paragon partition manager, plug in your hdd and run paragon. Hopefully it will see it, and from there you should be able to copy the stuff off the hard-drive (providing you have enough space to accomodate the data).

Hope that helps.

[CSP]

Dell XPS 17 inch Laptop + 1Tb Gb network storage FTW

[pow3rslave]

Dell XPS 17 inch Laptop + 1Tb Gb network storage FTW

i'll steer clear of dell laptops until i'm i'm sure i want electric shocks

[stocky]

i'll steer clear of dell laptops until i'm i'm sure i want electric shocks

been using my dell for 2 years. no shocks?

[VSIIISU]

If you hear hard drive clicking, its probably a sign of hard drive got mechanical issues with the fluid bearings, etc.

One way is to use freezer bags and make sure that they are airtight. Chuck yer hds and freeze them overnight. Afterwards, take them out and plug them onto computer. Try copying as much as you can.

If its not clicking, just not detectable. Maybe the hard disk needs new board underneath. Which would be a bit of a hassle to source another one with exactly the same specs (preferrably) and try and swap the boards from underneath across.

[NORTI]

this thread is 6mths old? I would say a solution would have been found by now