HDD Help. Need help on how to recover information.

Recently my MB bit the dust and I had to invest in a new MB and processor. I was under the impression my master HDD was fine and working ok when this happened. On reinstalling I got the double bios beep that sounds like a train whistle and low and behold I cannot access my master or my back up slave. Luckly enough I had another HDD and reinstalled my OS etc on there.

This is my problem. I have never done any sort of data recovery before and I need help on where to start. What do I need etc to able to access my old master and get some of my files back. I have tried to set it a slave and access it that way but I still get the double bios beep and I cannot access the drive.

The 2 hard drives are maxtor.

Any help would be grately appreciated. Thank you.

 

I assume your computer boots up with a splash screen. usually push tab or f8 to display post screen. You should see what error it is giving. a double beep posts the error after recieving. If it goes by to quickly push control s to pause the screen to see what the error is. But it could be circuitry error dealing with memory depending on the Bios manufactor. But the common thing is the drives so I would try an external hdd enclosure to test out the drives but I dont think your drives are bad. Have you tried them on a separate ide channel (assuming that they are pata)

 

I done as you said and it still flashed by too quickly for me to see anything. I wnet into BIOS and it is not detecting the Pri Slave. I go into auto detect and it detects it but does not read it correctly. Says new device found and asks me to reboot. FYI this is a Asus mb.

 

Check the jumper on your old drive, some MB's don't always work on the Cable Select setting with some drives. Set it to Slave, and set your new one to Master.
There should be a diagram on the drive(s) telling you the positions.

 

I have it set to slave and still have the same problem. (its set to DS Slave)

 

The Maxtor drives that I run as slaves have NO jumper on them. Try removing the jumper. I do believe that the jumper is only needed if choosing either MASTER or CABLE SELECT operation.

If you are running them as CABLE SELECT, be sure the MOBO supports that.

 

I suggest getting the utilities (Maxblast and Powermax) from Maxtor and check the drive/s with those. (You probably only need the floppy disk versions.)

There will be an option to backup the MBR, run that.

Tests/checks should tell you if the drive is readable or may say why it is not working.

If all else fails, run "Update the MBR" (it probably won't hurt, but there is always that possibility).

Matt