Samsung hard drive is toast?

Basic System Specs:

Motherboard: Giga-Byte GA-7N400-L
Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2200+ (1800 MHz) -- soon upgrading to AthlonXP 3200+
Memory: 2x512MB of DDR400 SDRAM
Hard Drives:
Western Digital 80GB WD800JB (C: )
Samsung 120GB SP1213N (D: )
Western Digital 300GB WD3000JB (E: )
Graphics: Connect3D Radeon 9200
DVD Drives:
Pioneer DVD-ROM DVD-120R
HP DVD Writer 640c
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 997DF 19 "
ATA Raid Controller (for 3rd hard drive): Silicon Image SiI680 Ultra-133 Medley

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Earlier tonight I was minding my own business on my computer, when suddenly I got the Blue Screen of Death for a quick moment. It flashed by too fast to read, then the computer powered down.

The computer would then boot up, but would freeze on "Detecting IDE Drives... ".

Removing one drive at a time until the computer booted up, I discovered that the Samsung hard drive (D: ) is not working. If I leave the computer in it's original configuration, only removing that one hard drive, it boots fine.

I have tried the following tricks to see if something else is at fault, with no response:
* Replaced the IDE cable.
* Tried a different power supply connector.
* If I connect the Samsung drive's power adapter, but leave the IDE cable unplugged, the computer boots (so there isn't a power issue).
* If I connect the drive to any of the primary & secondary IDE connectors (primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave), the same issue occurs.
* If I connect the drive to the SI ATA controller (tertiary master or tertiary slave), the computer boots fine but the drive is not accessible. I do not hear the drive spin up.


Is this drive toast now, or are there any other tricks I can try?

 

Would enter BIOS setup and see if the drive is recognized. If it is, look at it with fdisk (the win98 version) to see if the partition table is read, i.e., if a partition is seen. Disk management in XP might also show this, but believe DOS is closet to the hardware. If it's not recognized by the BIOS, it's unlikely anything can be done, assuming it's jumpered correctly.

 

BIOS is not recognizing the drive. This is not my boot drive.
For both drives attached to that cable, the BIOS says "NONE ".
I have the drive jumper set to 'Cable Select'.

If the drive is attached to the computer, the computer will not boot to DOS or Windows. It stops at "Detecting IDE Drives... ", sits there for a minute or two, then tries to boot to CD-ROM or network card.

If I have the drive in question attached to the computer, I cannot boot to it or any other drive in the computer.

The computer is freezing at the 'Detecting IDE Drives..." in POST, so I cannot run any FDISK tests on the drive. I cannot look at it with FDISK unless I can get the computer to boot. The only way I can get the computer to boot is to disconnect the drive, so I still can't run FDISK on the drive.



Any other suggestions?

 

Watching the POST on your monitor is not the same as entering the BIOS setup program, although the result may be similar. There is a keystroke (check your mobo manual) that you must use during the boot process to get the setup program running and there see what the bios shows. I don't believe your disks are SATA, are they? It's strange that two disks are shown as 'NONE' and only one is not working.

If the setup program shows NONE for the disk in question, and it's jumpered correctly (cable select is fine if the other disk on the cable is also jumpered cable select), then the drive is most likely non-functional, broken, toast as you say.

 

If you think you may be able to boot from a CD with the drive connected, then the UltimatebootCD comes with the Samsung disk diagnostic utilities included and able to run from the CD.

However it sounds like the drive is terminal and won’t be recognised to run any tests on it. The only option I can offer is try cooling the hard drive down. Most electronic equipment will run better the colder it is and sometimes this is enough to bring a hard drive back from the dead for a very short time. I’ve used this method with success on a couple of occasions and on one drive I had it worked several times with a life of about ten minutes each time. Gave me the time I needed to retrieve all the data.

Put it in the freezer inside an airtight bag or container. When you remove it to reconnect it try to ensure that the room temperature is not to high and that the humidity is low, otherwise condensation will form on the drive. Water and electronics = bad.

 

All drives on the system as IDE, not SATA.

The BIOS setup program says there is no drive connected. If I run the 'auto-detect', it still comes back with no attached drive.
All drives in the system are jumpered as 'Cable Select'. I tried jumpering the drives as the correct 'Master' and 'Slave' with no effect.

I took the drive to a friend's computer a few minutes ago. When I attached it to his computer as a slave drive, his computer froze up on the 'Detecting IDE Drives' part of the POST also. This suggests that the drive itself is at fault, and no changes to my computer will resolve that.

When I got home, I checked to see if I could tell if the drive is spinning up. Placing my thumb on the top center of the drive (centered above the platters), I feel absolutely no vibrations. On my functioning drives, I feel a circular vibration, like you would expect for a rotating platter drive. So it appears that the drive is not spinning up at all.

My internal case temperature is 37.2 degree Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the ThermalTake HardCano temperature sensor, and the drive is within a couple degrees of that temperature.

I haven't ever tried the freezer trick, but it is worth it to get the data off the drive. I live in Idaho, so humidity is rarely an issue. My room temperature is usually around 66 degrees Fahrenheit (19 degrees Celsius). Since my room temperature is lower than the case internal temperature, I don't think that will be a problem.

Even if I am able to copy the data off the drive, I will not be using this drive after I get the data off.

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

I would only add that, if after that, all seems lost, try the freezer trick again, but this time "tap" all around sides of the drives on the heel of your palm. It may release whatever is jammed.

Matt

 

Good idea. I'll try that.
I called Samsung. They are going to warranty the drive, but I would still like to get the data off of this one first.

 

I found a backup copy of the important stuff off the drive, so I am not going to bother trying to resurrect it.

Thank you everyone for your help anyway.