Darn, is my Hard Disk Drive finished? Can't read it.

  • Thread starter Thread starter eb7g
  • Start date Start date
E

eb7g

I have a 120GB Western Digital Caviar that is less than two years old. I
was rendering a movie from it when it froze and then nothing could read
it again.

The computer bios will see it, but windows can't. Can't seem to access
it in anyway, even to reformat it. It spins and seems fine....

Any idea what happened, and if it's usable? If so, how, as my operating
system won't read it. Warranty is expired.
 
I use GetDataBack and it has worked wonders on my old "unreadable" (by
Windows) drives.
-Chris.
 
ccrc said:
I use GetDataBack and it has worked wonders on my old "unreadable" (by
Windows) drives.
-Chris.
Click to expand...
Cool. I don't need the data on it, I just want to be able to use it
again, as it's not an old drive.
 
Cool. I don't need the data on it, I just want to be able to use it
again, as it's not an old drive.
Click to expand...

Well, it's worth a try to try to recover it then.

I wouldnt put faith in it until you've had it running stable a while
though.

Do you have the tech to repartition and reformat yourself? Have a
mildly well versed tech buddy who can help you?
-C.
 
download the diagnostic disk from WD and run the quick and extended health
test on the drive. you can also zero fill the drive (since you don't need
the data) and verify afterward to see if there are bad sectors in the drive.
unfortunately the program does not give you the actual errors, just error
codes so you can't really tell what they are. but having this happen to the
drive once, you should avoid putting important data on it, even if it
recovers.
 
Cool. I don't need the data on it, I just want to be able to
use it
again, as it's not an old drive.
Click to expand...

Get back data is a good option...
has worked for me with a dead 80 gb seagate.

Easy Recovery Pro....can also be of much help....its got this option
whr you can recover data from a formatted hdd. (hvnt still got a
chance to try it tho...) hopefuly shuld work for you..as long as the
drive detects in the bios and spins...uve not run out of luck....

im soon gonna start work on a WD Caviar WD400BB dead hdd which isnt
showing up on bios...

anyone knows any software for WD for e.g DM 9.5 for seagate

cheers!
 
You said it's less than 2yrs old and warranty's expired, all WD 120gb drives
come with a 3yr warranty, look into RMA'ing it.
I'd stay clear of any WD drives, due to past experience with them.
 
The whole industry was getting poor yields and sales were down so they
decided to release bunch crappy HDs and offer 1 year or 30 day warranties.
WD hardrives are are the best I know of.. I have 4 WD740 raptors 1 WD360
raptor and 4 80gb JB IDE drives and have never had any issues with them,,
I would stay clear of samsung fujitsu.
 
Patrick said:
The whole industry was getting poor yields
Bullshit.

and sales were down
Click to expand...

More bullshit.
so they decided to release bunch crappy HDs and offer 1 year or 30 day
warranties.
Click to expand...

Samsung never did.
WD hardrives are are the best I know of..
Click to expand...

You wanna get out more, child.
I have 4 WD740 raptors 1 WD360 raptor and 4 80gb JB IDE drives and have never
had any issues with them,,
Click to expand...

The JB drives are hardly the current mass market drives WD sells.
I would stay clear of samsung fujitsu.
Click to expand...

More fool you. And Fujitsu doesnt even bother with 3.5"
IDE drives anymore, shows how little you actually know.
 
if the drive is unreadable with any other tools.....


try this


works.. 90% of the time


freeze the bastard.. overnight

get ghost.. made by symantec.. a hard drive cloning utility


install the dead hard drive back.. boot up with ghost, and let the
cloning begins!
 
Or just get Spinrite.


Rob said:
if the drive is unreadable with any other tools.....


try this


works.. 90% of the time


freeze the bastard.. overnight

get ghost.. made by symantec.. a hard drive cloning utility


install the dead hard drive back.. boot up with ghost, and let the
cloning begins!
Click to expand...
 
I just checked it with Partion Doctor 3.0. Turns out....every sector is
bad. I guess it's toast.

I bought a Seagate Barracuda 200GB instead, they have the 5 year warranty.

thanks for your posts and emails.
 
Rob said:
if the drive is unreadable with any other tools.....

try this

works.. 90% of the time
Click to expand...

depends what the failure mode is.
freeze the bastard.. overnight
Click to expand...

If you must give this advice at least tell people to put the HDD
in a plastic bag before putting it in the freezer.
get ghost.. made by symantec.. a hard drive cloning utility


install the dead hard drive back.. boot up with ghost, and let the
cloning begins!
Click to expand...

Using this method you may have limited time until it heats up and
stops working again.

It might be quicker to get important files off it instead of cloning
the entire drive.
 
thats why i mentioned in my first line " if the drive is unreadable
with any other tools "


:)


in other words, if the drive is toast, give it a shot
 
I just checked it with Partion Doctor 3.0. Turns out....every sector is
bad. I guess it's toast.
Click to expand...


did you try writing it with 0's? (low level format)
 
If every sector is bad, that means the media or disk is not accessible.
Good chance the controller or the head controller (inside the drive, not on
the board) is fried. The original poster only want to check if the drive
still works and don't care about the data so it's a piece of junk now. You
wouldn't trust a drive like that even if it recovers.
 
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