5 day old hard drive isn't recognized! Need to revive enough to get data off!

This is a new thread started as an offshoot issue from another thread I already commented on it in.

Background: I had two HDDs in my system; a 6gb system drive and a 40gb data drive as slave. I had a crash and many odd noises from the 6gb drive so I bought a new 80gb drive and a new UDMA 133 contoller (since I'd always wanted one anyway). I had some success getting the failing 6gb drive to boot and my data transferred. That's when things took an even worse turn....


OK... now I'm worried. I was feeling better for a while but now I'm worried.

I got the old suspect HDD to boot up off the onboard controller while I had the good HDD and the brand new 80gb drive on the promise controller. All seemed to be fine as I backed up the data from the suspect (old) drive to the new drive. Some data I had put on the 40gb drive (existing but good- it's the 6gb drive which was failing).

Well, now it gets interesting. Once while I was copying some files around getting the 80gb drive ready to be my new system drive, the 80gb drive quit responding. The 6gb (the suspect one) and the 40gb drives were working fine, oddly enough.

NOW, however, I cannot get the 80gb drive to register on the promise card OR the onboard controller. It registers as a drive on the onboard but won't mount. It won't register as installed AT ALL on the promise card. It was seen for a while but wouldn't boot... now nothing.

The drive spins up and sounds normal when powered up. I see no reason for it to fail. It's only 5 days old!!!!

I need to get ideas for how to revive this brand new drive enough to get the data off. I am utterly sickened by this, since I moved a lot of data off of a good 40gb drive to this brand new drive only to have IT now fail. I don't know if something else is wrong or if I'm just doomed to lose data. But who would have thought a brand new drive would fail before I could even back up the data?!?!?!?!

I may post this info in a new thread to get some new opinions.

 

Something to check for, a boot sector virus. You may need to run an antivirus boot disk to check them.

Matt

 

I agree with Matt, try checking for viruses.

Mike

 

Can a virus POSSIBLY cause a hard drive to not be recognized by its controller?

I thought of a virus. However this seems to be far too close to the hardware level since it's a matter of a hardware problem before the boot sector is even accessed.

One question - if I had a boot sector virus, why would it cause a problem on a drive without even a boot sector yet? When I'm booting from a CDROM? What's more, how would I scan the drive for a virus when the drive hasn't even been recognized by the controller and thus cannot be access by any program?

 

Slight update -

SOMETIMES, when trying to boot, the drive is at least recognized by the controller. I cannot ACCESS the drive, but every so often I at least see the correct parameters appear. Hitting any kind of reset results in the lack of them again.

I find the same results whether I hit 'reset' or whether I turn the power off for a while. I have tried numerous PCI and IDE related BIOS parameters without affecting it. I updated the BIOS on the promise card without luck.

It's as if the drive's electronics were making intermittent contact with the controller. As I mentioned, it does NOT require a hard reset or power down to sometimes go from NO response to good response. As if the drive were working fine internally but contact is being lost (and YES, I've swapped cables).

Something of note - once, after seeing the drive, I booted quickly to a floppy. I did a "dir" and was able to see the dirs on the fat formatted primary partition!!!! So.... it seems as if my data is still there somewhere on the disk and it CAN be accessed. SOMEHOW.

As I wrote this... my DOS boot was able to complete the directory after hanging for about 1-2 minutes. I did a dir of a subdirectory and managed to eventually complete a dir of the entire contents!! So my data is indeed safe at least on this partition. NOW... how to make it work properly?

ANY ideas?!?!?!?!

 

Sorry stelliger, but I am a bit lost.

Matt

 

Thanks for at least trying. With luck someone who may have seen this or has some very technical info will wander by with some ideas.

I have had, during the time since my last post, some very limited success reading info from the drive when booted from a floppy. It appears a little spurt of data would come... then a long hesitation (sometimes giving me 'not ready' errors). Somtimes retrying would eventually get another quick read.

As I speculated... it more and more looks like the internal workings of the drive are OK but that data only works sporadically. If data were coming from the drive but it was mechanically failing you would expect different types of errors and sounds.

 

You have lots of information there. I take it you are referring to the 80gb drive. (We poor hardware guys have to visualise the errors that are happening on another machine out there in cyberspace ).

The data has been transferred then and you can sometimes see it?

Thoughts so far: clean all the conections with Contact Cleaner. Try the 80gb on a motherboard IDE, if it can be recognised there (do you have to run it on the controller card?).

See if you can isolate the problem or get consistent errors.

Matt

 

steeliger,

Do you have access to another system that you could insert the drive into and see if the drive works properly? If the drive works fine in another system, we can eliminate the drive as the problem.

Mike

 

An old Pentium computer I have lying around, yes... but it's pretty old and I's surely need to use the promise controller. In time maybe I could get access to a newer system in which to try the drive....

 

As ecpected, the 80gb drive did not work in the other computer. I put the controller card in the old pentium and got the same result; the 40gb drive would work but not the 80gb.

I didn't think the drive would work in the other computer because, for one, I had the 80gb drive working for a couple days in the original system and it just STOPPED accessing one day. So the config hadn't changed from when it was working. Two, I had been able to get the 40gb drive to work under EACH circumstance under which the 80gb drive would fail to be recognized. Same cables, same controller (both onboard and the promise), same power cords, same IDE port on the promise. Nada.

I really hope someone with some experience with a similar circumstance would chime in about this. I need my data off. The drive is unimportant but I need my data.

Please, HOW can I save my data since it's apparently on the drive but just cannot be accessed?

 

Hi Stelliger ...

See my response to your other post.

 

Thanks for the follow-up here, Jim.

Just for a brief summary to address the issue back here, let me state that I appreciate the idea to use the drive as a slave to get data off intermittently - BUT, I have 30gb or so of data, which could easily take weeks to get off, given the fact I may have a couple seconds every couple minutes where the drive actually works (in the DOS boot).

I think I may have had more success during a time when I was pushing down on the connector slightly. Maybe this actually made a difference and maybe it was just coincidence that I had better luck then.

 

Hi Stelliger,

It seems to me that if the drive is intermittently operational, the problem may not be with the drive, itself (bad circuit board excepted, of course).

• Is it possible that you have a bent pin on the drive's IDE connector?
  
  Have you tried a different IDE cable?
  
  As a last resort, have you tried a different power connector from your power supply?

 

Thanks again Jim....

As for your suggestions, though - I found myself WISHING it were only that easy! I can't tell you how many times I found myself at 4am inspecting pins, tryng new IDE cables, trying new power connectors from the power supply (heck - I even tried a SEPERATE power supply with no load on it other than the drive), moving the contoller card to different PCI slots, trying a different computer, checking BIOS options, blowing the connector with compressed air, letting the drive warm up, letting the drive cool down... all kinds of things.

Fact remains, in every situation where the 80gb hard drive failed, the 40gb hard drive succeeded without problem. I could use the same exact IDE cable and power connector, trade the 40gb for the 80gb, and have it work every time.

I would guess it's somewhere on the drive's circuit board, whether it's in the circuitry or in the connections to the connector.

I just wonder if it would be worth trying to obtain another similar drive and trying to personally swap the circuit boards. A substantial problem, indeed, and I would possibly wind up with one hard drive I couldn't return (given that I wouldn't want either the donor or original hard drive to KEEP; I could probably return only one). However it's much cheaper than the $500+ the data recovery companies seem to want.

 

Unfortunately, it sounds as though you DO have a bad drive.

I've got one last suggestion, and I won't blame you if you think it's silly, and don't want to try it ... stick the drive in your refrigerator for awhile, then try it again. I know that drives are supposed to work best when properly warmed up, but I've actually heard of this working with a reluctant drive. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

I don't recall if you mentioned in one of your other posts whether it's a WD800BB (2MB cache) or a WD800JB (8MB cache). The JB is also referred to as a Caviar SE model.

Should you decide to go ahead with your board-swapping experiment, the BB is available on PriceWatch for $65, and the JB for $72 ... at least you could save a few bucks as opposed to retail (unless you found a good sale w/rebate at BestBuy, CompUSA, CircuitCity, etc.) BTW, it's been my experience that Staples will match anyone else's lowest advertised price (if you have one close to you).

Good luck!

 

Have you run the drive manufacturers diagnostics utilities on it? They would be the best to "see" the drive and what's on it. You should be thrown to a DOS prompt when you exit.

Matt

 

Jim,

Yes... I concluded the drive probably had problems. I was just hoping someone could suggest a workaround to get the data off.

I'm going to try the in-the-freezer suggestion which I'd seen elsewhere, too... it's worth a try. I understand well how the cold could change the properties of the drive enough to make a difference. I'm not terribly optimistic, however, given that the problem seems more in the circuit board than in the mechanics of the drive.

What risks do you feel I would be running by swapping out the boards with another? Right now my data seems OK. I don't want to put a board in that would be just different enough to hammer my data when there may still be SOME method of kick-starting it.

I got this drive for $50 after rebates; it was a good sale. I doubt it's still on but you can see why I'm not as worried about the price of the drive itself. Yes - it's the 8mb cache version.

I will keep plodding.

J

P.S. What are the chances WD would assist in this, either recovering my data or being persuaded to foot the bill, given the nature of this crash? I have an email into them for support. It may be a long shot but I'm wondering just in case I have to go to a data recovery company...

 

Hoo, boy! I've done a lot of far out things to/with computer components, but swapping circuit boards on a HD is something I've never tried. At this point, voiding the warranty is the farthest thing from your mind, I'm sure, so you might as well go for it.

I don't think WD will be willing to pick up the cost of data recovery but, what the hey, it's worth a shot. Another guess is that they're going to give you a little more consideration because you have a Caviar SE, which is their top-of-the-line series. Also, if they're aware of problems with this particular model, they may be more willing to listen.

I had problems last winter with two of their WD1000JBs, and tech support was very helpful, replacing them, under warranty, with no questions asked. Data recovery may well be another story.

Once again, good luck!

 

****, I wish all of these posts were in a single thread! One other thought occurs to me, though ... you said, in another post in another thread, that the data was on an extended partition.

If you have PartitionMagic, or another partition manager, available, you might try to merge the partitions and then see if you can access your data.