Mission Impossible? Hard Drive Data Recovery Needs Your Help

R

rob_in_oz2003

New Member
Hey,

Im trying to recover my data of an old hard drive I haven’t used in about 2 years. I just plugged it into my current PC and it says 'BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'

I put in my Win XP CD so that I could use the recovery console fix the damaged boot sector and possible missing or corrupt ntldr ntdetect.com files.

When I pressed R it says 'Set up did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.'

After following this advice I now have no idea where to go next.. I would really love recover the data of this drive.

Any ideas? Thanks Rob
 
Look into your case if the power supply of your HD is still plugged in.
also, make sure the jumpers are set correct. ( besides.. you have to use the HD of your current PC to boot windows of,.. and set the old HD as slave on the same IDE channel (assuming both HD's are IDE disks).
 
Yeah,BIOS is not detecting it.That's a problem cause if it's not detected at all you can't use any software to recover your data...
 
ok i decided to plug my primary HD back in.

Phew.. its detecting that.. i was getting scared for a second!

I have never set up a slave drive before.. do you recon i should head down that road? and run my OS primary and broken HD on slave?

When the HD broke i presumed that it was fatal and just brought a brand new HD. I realise now it may only be a booting error or perhaps i can partition it and save some of the data.
 
yeah slave off the second hard drive, its quite asy, there will be a set of pins (jumpers) on the back of the drive where the data cable and power plug in. There should be a diagram on the hard drive to show you how to select slave

Also check the pins where the data cable plugs in too to make sure none have been bent or pushed in.
 
wow that was less scary than i thought.

i took out the little black plastic bit and put it over pins 3-4 as indicated on the HD as slave.

so now do i connect a spare ribbon and data cable coming from the existing HD in the PC?
 
ok pins have been changed and its all be plugged in.

i checked bios and for Primary Master is set to [AUTO]

Primary Slave is also set to [AUTO]

when the computer boots it tries to detect them but dosent appear to find anything! NONE is the reponse for all of them.

Where have i gone wrong?

When i select from the options on AUTO in Bios there is nothing else to select :S
 
maybe change the jumpers of both HD's to CS (Cable Select)
then make sure your current pc's HD is connected to the end of the ribbon cable, and the old disk is connected to the connector in the middle of the cable.
 
ahh damm western digital different pin configuration! lol

now checking the primary.. i forgot about changing those pins aswell. now changed to primary with slave
 
do you ever get that feeling that you opened your PC case to many times in one day? lol i really do appreciate this help :)

now it detects the primary master but still not the slave. Windows got to the point of booting then shuts down.

So far i have;

The pin arrangement for my working HD is set to Primary/ W Slave
The pin arrangement for the broken HD is set to Slave
And the ribbon + power connects first to the Slave then to the Master.
 
it could be that the harddisk is broken ofcourse (showring out or so.. :x).. but, does it give any error or so?
also.. some ribbon cables can be plugged in either way, because they dont have the notch on 1 side.. but then, the cable looks weird twisted if you do that i think.. so its not likely that happened
 
Yea maybee it just to broken to fix myself.. probally could be saved by a recovery company but i dont wanna splash out the cash.

Ahh never mind... thanks for the help... especially Archangle

I have deffiantly learned a few things today :) which im sure i will use in the future.

Just one other thing... when i booted up i notice the sound cards gone weird.. making BEEPING nose when it should be making sounds. Anyone know how to fix that? lol I checked to see if i nocked the card out at all but its in perfect.
 
This sounds weird, but put your broken HD in the freezer for about 20 minutes or so, then pull it out and hook it back up as a secondary drive. Then pull whatever data you can off of it, then trash it.
 
tlarkin said:
This sounds weird, but put your broken HD in the freezer for about 20 minutes or so, then pull it out and hook it back up as a secondary drive. Then pull whatever data you can off of it, then trash it.
Click to expand...


hmm... never heard of that one,.. but hey, im open for everything,.. and if you look at it,.. i dont think you have much to loose anyway :)

Too bad it didnt work out so far :( I'm a bit out of idea's atm.. but maybe ill get an idea later on (if so ill post it ^^ )
 
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