Hard Drive Problem

[Fox McCloud]

Hi

A long time ago my 2nd HDD (Maxtor 250gb SataII) used to store vids and mp3s etc suddenly stopped working. Boot time increased and windows took longer to load up, and before getting into windows it would do a scan disk. Eventually the drive stopped showing up in windows.

Ive basically had it unplugged for like a year cos i couldnt be bothered fixing it after my initial attempts succeeded in getting it working then died again.

Now, in my HTPC the main drive (Maxtor 500gb SataII) stopped working also.
It does not get detected in BIOS, and hte boot does not detect it either. After POST windows loads fine.

So 2 HDDs, same make, died. Ironically the first one that did was my "safe, non-os second hdd". The primary HDD in this comp is 3 yrs old, SATA I, and that is still running strong.

The 250gb makes boot take about 5 minutes and windows runs sluggish.
The 500gb makes the HDD Detection part of the boot (when you get the ability to press del to enter bios) take forever, then windows boots and runs fine.

I need help, since there is no HDD in my HTPC, and ideally id like to get my vids/pics.music back from the older hdd.

Specs of the HTPC

Gigabyte 780g, 4gb RAM, X2 4800+ and the 500gb Maxtor

My PC:
ASUS A8N-E, 1GB DDR1, X2 4600+, Radeon 3650. Maxtor SATA I 200GB (OS) Maxtor SATA II 250GB.

I tried the 500gb in my main pc and still no joy in detection.

I fiddled with lots of bios options in the htpc, and my pc. Cant get the 500gb detected, and cant stop the 250 from making things sluggish.


Sorry if the post was disjointed, just typing as i think lol.
Any help would be AWESOME

 

[Elixer]

If BIOS can't detect it, then usually, your SOL.
If BIOS don't detect, but windows does (which would be a very strange case), then just copy the data off that and onto a new one ASAP.

If your SOL, then your only hope is to spend a ton of $$$ to the data recovery people.

You could also try moving the HDs inbetween systems, and see if either one detects them better, but you really should have a new HD installed, ready to copy the data, since it may be the last chance you get.

 

[Fox McCloud]

I hope they arnt proper dead

Ive had the 250gb in a few seperate computers, none will find it. And the 500gb has came from htpc to my main one.

Both are in now and powered up. The machine took approx 20 mins to boot
And they cant been seen by windows in Dev Manager or Comp Manager.

 

[Fox McCloud]

update:

The 250gb drive does not get detected by bios when plugged in by itself. However it is detected when my OS drive (200gb) is plugged in with it.

Ive tried some bootable hdd programs but they fall over when trying to do anything with either of the drives

 

[VirtualLarry]

Backups!@#$

 

[Denithor]

To steal a page from Blain: SpinRite 6.0 might be worth trying. It's not free but read some of the reviews they have posted.

 

[Fox McCloud]

thanks for the input.
Ive gave the 500gb drive to a friend who is a hardware wiz, hes gonna crack it open and get t working again. If he succeeds ill give him my 250gb to have a bash at too.

Ill let you know if he succeeds and if so will explain what he did.