Hard drive question

hansbockler · External Since: Jul 13, 2009 Posts: 3

Hello! I am in need of assistance concerning my external hard drive. My
hard drive has been working flawlessly for the past 3 years. As of
today, my computer no longer recognizes it.

This is what I have done so far:

-Unplugged it, plugged it back up, and my computer made a chime saying
that it was recognized and said that it was ready to go.
-However, the HDD does not show up on the my computer tab.
-I removed the HDD from its enclosure, purchased a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE
and tried uploading the HDD to my wife's computer. Once again, her
computer chimed saying that it was recognized (she runs XP, i have
vista), but, once again, the hard drive was not in the my computer
folder.
-I then proceeded to Computer Management, Disk Management, and noticed
that my external hard drive is not there either.

So.... anything? I thought that maybe intially my power cord to the
outlet in the wall just went bad, but after I bought the USB to SATA/IDE
adapter and it still didn't work...well, I ran out of options.

Anything? Thank you so much!!

--
hansbockler

Manny Weisbord · External Since: Feb 23, 2009 Posts: 31

hansbockler <guest.RemoveThis@unknown-email.com> wrote:

>
>Hello! I am in need of assistance concerning my external hard drive. My
>hard drive has been working flawlessly for the past 3 years. As of
>today, my computer no longer recognizes it.
>
>This is what I have done so far:
>
>-Unplugged it, plugged it back up, and my computer made a chime saying
>that it was recognized and said that it was ready to go.
>-However, the HDD does not show up on the my computer tab.
>-I removed the HDD from its enclosure, purchased a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE
>and tried uploading the HDD to my wife's computer. Once again, her
>computer chimed saying that it was recognized (she runs XP, i have
>vista), but, once again, the hard drive was not in the my computer
>folder.
>-I then proceeded to Computer Management, Disk Management, and noticed
>that my external hard drive is not there either.
>
>So.... anything? I thought that maybe intially my power cord to the
>outlet in the wall just went bad, but after I bought the USB to SATA/IDE
>adapter and it still didn't work...well, I ran out of options.
>
>Anything? Thank you so much!!

It died. Requiem in pace.

hansbockler · External Since: Jul 13, 2009 Posts: 3

what a quick and depressing answer. what about spending big bucks to
have it "professionally done" ? does that work or is it a gamble?

--
hansbockler

hansbockler · External Since: Jul 13, 2009 Posts: 3

also, does anyone know how to see if the BIOS can read yoru HDD? i know
nothing about computer lingo, i just read somewhere to see if the BIOS
recognizes the drive. Help?

--
hansbockler

Richard G. Harper · External Since: Sep 09, 2006 Posts: 1451

Try the drive on a different computer. If it is still not seen then the
device has likely failed.

"hansbockler" <guest DeleteThis @unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:8b2a26315db6fe6d2c019f6e37af6c35@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Hello! I am in need of assistance concerning my external hard drive. My
> hard drive has been working flawlessly for the past 3 years. As of
> today, my computer no longer recognizes it.
>
> This is what I have done so far:
>
> -Unplugged it, plugged it back up, and my computer made a chime saying
> that it was recognized and said that it was ready to go.
> -However, the HDD does not show up on the my computer tab.
> -I removed the HDD from its enclosure, purchased a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE
> and tried uploading the HDD to my wife's computer. Once again, her
> computer chimed saying that it was recognized (she runs XP, i have
> vista), but, once again, the hard drive was not in the my computer
> folder.
> -I then proceeded to Computer Management, Disk Management, and noticed
> that my external hard drive is not there either.
>
> So.... anything? I thought that maybe intially my power cord to the
> outlet in the wall just went bad, but after I bought the USB to SATA/IDE
> adapter and it still didn't work...well, I ran out of options.
>
> Anything? Thank you so much!!
>
>
> --
> hansbockler

DL · External Since: Apr 24, 2009 Posts: 33

Since you tried it in a different PC with the same result, its safe to
assume its dead
Proffessional recovery of data is big $, usually on a no recovery no fee
basis

"hansbockler" <guest DeleteThis @unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:7c629dbde195d1ba98f97ffb5e859798@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> also, does anyone know how to see if the BIOS can read yoru HDD? i know
> nothing about computer lingo, i just read somewhere to see if the BIOS
> recognizes the drive. Help?
>
>
> --
> hansbockler

tech-pro.net · External Since: Jul 15, 2009 Posts: 1

On 14 July, 02:50, hansbockler <gu....RemoveThis@unknown-email.com> wrote:
> also, does anyone know how to see if the BIOS can read yoru HDD? i know
> nothing about computer lingo, i just read somewhere to see if the BIOS
> recognizes the drive. Help?
>
> --
> hansbockler

You can't read the HDD using just the BIOS. However most good data
recovery programs will bypass Windows and read the HDD using the BIOS
or even direct to the controller, in order to get maximum control to
try to recover the data. My website www.tech-pro.net has a lot of
advice about data recovery and some of the best data recovery tools.
They are all try before you buy, so you can see if they will help
before you have to pay for them.

However from the symptoms you have described and what you have already
tried it seems as if you have experienced a complete failure of the
drive. My guess is that the controller board on the drive itself has
failed. If you could get hold of another drive of the same make and
model and are careful about precautions against static you could try
taking the controller board out of the good drive and putting it into
the bad one. That would seem to be your only chance of a DIY data
recovery in this case.

A profesional data recovery service such as Ontrack could do this for
you. They could also read the data off the disk platters if the drive
hardware rather than the electronics have failed. But as you already
noted, it will be expensive. It depends what the data is worth to you
and how irreplaceable it is.

Your experience underlines the importance of regular backups. I have
several backup programs on my site too. But although we sell around 30
data recovery software licenses a day we probably don't sell one
backup program a month.

Julian Moss
Tech-Pro.net