Hard Drive Problem

larrywilcox · 07-10-2005, 07:09 PM

Hello all. Before I get started I want to thank those who take the time to read my post and offer words of wisdom in regards to my problem.

I have a hard drive that appears to have failed. It's a WDC 400BB (Western Digitial Caviar 40 gig) manufacture date - April 2001. It belongs to a friend of mine and it was part of a system I built a few years ago. It was running Win ME without any problems until recently where the computer froze and upon reboot the system gave a message "Drive error, system halted." The hard drive also made clicking noises indicative of head failure. The drive was running as a single drive on the primary IDE controller. One thing that I had noticed is that the BIOS was no longer detecting the hard drive. My guess is the hard drive has seen better days but my friend has data on it that he would like to recover if possible. We're hoping there may be a way to get to whats on the drive without going the data recovery route (which is quite expensive).

One suggestion that was made by an IT guy I used to work with was the boot sector on the drive may have failed and setting up the drive to run as a slave under another drive as a master may allow access to the drive. Apparently he has had a similar problem with a WD drive and his solution worked for him. We tried this route with a new HD set as a master and the "problem" drive set as a slave. I ruled out a faulty cable as the new drive was picked up without a problem (I also swapped the cable with a new one just to be sure). The problem drive however still was not being detected by the bios. In the bios I decided to change the setting for detection of the primary slave to "IDE removable" as opposed to "auto" to see if that would make a difference in detecting the problem hard drive. Oddly enough the BIOS then recognized the problem drive, listing its model number, etc. and identifying it was connected through an 80 pin cable. Unfortunately we still could not access the drive. FDISK doesn't acknowledge the drive is there even though the BIOS seems to recognize it now. The diagnostics tool from WD didn't pick up the drive either. The clicking noise also disappeared once this problem drive was setup for use as a slave drive.

After doing some searching on this forum and other places on the net I am still at a loss as to whether or not there is any hope of getting into this hard drive. I know the possibility of a dead drive is there but we're hoping that's not the case. One thing I may try after a bit is putting the problem drive into a couple of different boxes in a slave role to see if it can be detected/accessed.

Has anyone here had a similar problem with a drive and has had luck getting back into it? Any insight would be appreciated

Edit: I tried setting up the "problem" drive as a slave in another box of mine with no luck. The bios of this box actually reported it as "hard drive failed" while checking my drives during boot up. The bios wouldn't acknowledge the drive at all, even with manual settings (as 'auto' didn't work either). It's looking grim.

larrywilcox · 07-13-2005, 03:57 AM

Anyone have any thoughts? Comments?

**The_Other_One** · 07-13-2005, 04:05 AM

It sounds like the drive's a goner... I would agree it's just the boot sector or something, but if you heard noises from it and the BIOS gave you errors, there's something pretty serious going on there.

kof2000 · 07-13-2005, 05:47 AM

you can try running HDDhealth for 24hours and see if the failure time is pretty darn close and not changing.

**The_Other_One** · 07-13-2005, 06:35 AM

Dude, how's he going to do that if the bios doesn't even detect the drive correctly?!

Dropkickmurphys · 07-13-2005, 07:25 AM

can you run a hard drive diagnostics? it will tell you whether it has failed or not

larrywilcox · 07-17-2005, 05:29 AM

I wasn't able to do anything with this drive. I've pretty much written it off as a lost cause and handed it back to my friend with the sad news. There is another guy we know that is going to take a stab at it but it doesn't look too promising from what I experienced with this drive.

A diagnostics program wouldn't even acknowledge the drive was there, especially since I really couldn't get a bios to recognize the drive.

If the other guy actually is able to do something with this drive I'll post what he did as he would be stumbling onto something that most people would be glad to know about.

kof2000 · 07-17-2005, 05:40 AM

if there isnt anything REALLY important on the drive i would not spend money to get it recovered. i had to crashed HDDS i did not bother dealing with it i just throw them away.

07-10-2005, 07:09 PM	#1 (permalink)
larrywilcox New Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 3	Hard Drive Problem - Failure? Corruption? Need insight Hello all. Before I get started I want to thank those who take the time to read my post and offer words of wisdom in regards to my problem. I have a hard drive that appears to have failed. It's a WDC 400BB (Western Digitial Caviar 40 gig) manufacture date - April 2001. It belongs to a friend of mine and it was part of a system I built a few years ago. It was running Win ME without any problems until recently where the computer froze and upon reboot the system gave a message "Drive error, system halted." The hard drive also made clicking noises indicative of head failure. The drive was running as a single drive on the primary IDE controller. One thing that I had noticed is that the BIOS was no longer detecting the hard drive. My guess is the hard drive has seen better days but my friend has data on it that he would like to recover if possible. We're hoping there may be a way to get to whats on the drive without going the data recovery route (which is quite expensive). One suggestion that was made by an IT guy I used to work with was the boot sector on the drive may have failed and setting up the drive to run as a slave under another drive as a master may allow access to the drive. Apparently he has had a similar problem with a WD drive and his solution worked for him. We tried this route with a new HD set as a master and the "problem" drive set as a slave. I ruled out a faulty cable as the new drive was picked up without a problem (I also swapped the cable with a new one just to be sure). The problem drive however still was not being detected by the bios. In the bios I decided to change the setting for detection of the primary slave to "IDE removable" as opposed to "auto" to see if that would make a difference in detecting the problem hard drive. Oddly enough the BIOS then recognized the problem drive, listing its model number, etc. and identifying it was connected through an 80 pin cable. Unfortunately we still could not access the drive. FDISK doesn't acknowledge the drive is there even though the BIOS seems to recognize it now. The diagnostics tool from WD didn't pick up the drive either. The clicking noise also disappeared once this problem drive was setup for use as a slave drive. After doing some searching on this forum and other places on the net I am still at a loss as to whether or not there is any hope of getting into this hard drive. I know the possibility of a dead drive is there but we're hoping that's not the case. One thing I may try after a bit is putting the problem drive into a couple of different boxes in a slave role to see if it can be detected/accessed. Has anyone here had a similar problem with a drive and has had luck getting back into it? Any insight would be appreciated Edit: I tried setting up the "problem" drive as a slave in another box of mine with no luck. The bios of this box actually reported it as "hard drive failed" while checking my drives during boot up. The bios wouldn't acknowledge the drive at all, even with manual settings (as 'auto' didn't work either). It's looking grim. Last edited by larrywilcox; 07-13-2005 at 03:58 AM.

07-13-2005, 04:05 AM	#3 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 23 Posts: 12,188	It sounds like the drive's a goner... I would agree it's just the boot sector or something, but if you heard noises from it and the BIOS gave you errors, there's something pretty serious going on there. __________________ Urban De-Development * Athlon X2 4200 \| 2048M RAM \| 160G HD \| 7600GT * C2D T5250 \| 2048M RAM \| 160G HD \| Intel x3100 * G4 1.33GHz \| 512M RAM \| 40G HD \| Radeon 9200

07-13-2005, 05:47 AM	#4 (permalink)
kof2000 Diamond Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Oahu Age: 26 Posts: 6,273	you can try running HDDhealth for 24hours and see if the failure time is pretty darn close and not changing. __________________ QX9650@4.2 swiftech \|9600@3.0 9700 nt 780i \| 790fx 8gb ddr1200 \| 8gb ddr1200 2x150gb 3x1tb \|2x250gb 3x8800gtx \|3x2900xt 1gb 2x20xdvdrw \|2x20xdvdrw 15in1 card reader \|15in1 card reader ng15/g9 \|ng15/g9 1200w psu \|1200w psu 2x28" LCD \|2x28" LCD

07-13-2005, 06:35 AM	#5 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 23 Posts: 12,188	Dude, how's he going to do that if the bios doesn't even detect the drive correctly?! __________________ Urban De-Development * Athlon X2 4200 \| 2048M RAM \| 160G HD \| 7600GT * C2D T5250 \| 2048M RAM \| 160G HD \| Intel x3100 * G4 1.33GHz \| 512M RAM \| 40G HD \| Radeon 9200

07-13-2005, 07:25 AM	#6 (permalink)
Dropkickmurphys Diamond Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Worthing, UK (Uni at Kent) Age: 18 Posts: 1,580	can you run a hard drive diagnostics? it will tell you whether it has failed or not __________________ Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz Gigabyte P35C-DS3R motherboard 2GB 6400 DDR2 800mhz RAM 512Mb Geforce 8600GT 500GB Seagate 7,500RPM HDD Lite-on 20x DVD+RW OCZ GameXStream 600W PSU CoolerMaster Black Centurian 534 Case Samsung 19" 1440x900 SyncMaster 940BW monitor / Samsung 19" 1440x900 TV Dual Booting: Windows XP Proffessional SP2 / Windows Vista Business SP1

07-13-2005, 03:57 AM	#2 (permalink)
larrywilcox New Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 3	Anyone have any thoughts? Comments?

07-17-2005, 05:29 AM	#7 (permalink)
larrywilcox New Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 3	I wasn't able to do anything with this drive. I've pretty much written it off as a lost cause and handed it back to my friend with the sad news. There is another guy we know that is going to take a stab at it but it doesn't look too promising from what I experienced with this drive. A diagnostics program wouldn't even acknowledge the drive was there, especially since I really couldn't get a bios to recognize the drive. If the other guy actually is able to do something with this drive I'll post what he did as he would be stumbling onto something that most people would be glad to know about.

07-17-2005, 05:40 AM	#8 (permalink)
kof2000 Diamond Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Oahu Age: 26 Posts: 6,273	if there isnt anything REALLY important on the drive i would not spend money to get it recovered. i had to crashed HDDS i did not bother dealing with it i just throw them away. __________________ QX9650@4.2 swiftech \|9600@3.0 9700 nt 780i \| 790fx 8gb ddr1200 \| 8gb ddr1200 2x150gb 3x1tb \|2x250gb 3x8800gtx \|3x2900xt 1gb 2x20xdvdrw \|2x20xdvdrw 15in1 card reader \|15in1 card reader ng15/g9 \|ng15/g9 1200w psu \|1200w psu 2x28" LCD \|2x28" LCD

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