Hard Drive Trouble

[Zack Dollar]

I am running a p3-700 under win2k. I have an external drive usb 2.0 that
was not disconnected with the "usb icon" about a week ago. Th next day the
drive was not accessible.

Disk management does not show the drive. In device manager, you can see the
drive's model number. This is as an external drive.

When I take the drive out of the external case and plug it into the mobo the
bios sees the model number the drive does not appear in windows. I also
tried this on another pc.

The drive appears to be spinning. I ran Knoppix to see if the drive
appeared but no luck (as external and internal on 2 pc's).

I found a utility called r-studio that recognizes the drive when plugged in
externally but it says it is 76gb when it is 60gb. r-studio will do a
surface scan. When I start it on the drive it has an i/o error frequently.
I only let the test go for about 8 hrs and it was only about 5% done.

I've tried Dfsee but it does not see the drive either.

Could a read/wirte head failure cause these kinds of errors? I don't
understand how windows can see the model number but will not do anything
else. Are there any other utilities out there that may pinpoint the
problem?

I need important tax information from this drive.

Maxtor 60gb DiamondMax PLus 9

Thanks so much....
Zack

 

[Rod Speed]

I am running a p3-700 under win2k. I have an external drive
usb 2.0 that was not disconnected with the "usb icon" about
a week ago. Th next day the drive was not accessible.

Likely its just died and that had nothing to do
with how it was disconnected with the usb icon.

Disk management does not show the drive. In device manager,
you can see the drive's model number. This is as an external drive.

When I take the drive out of the external case and plug
it into the mobo the bios sees the model number the drive
does not appear in windows. I also tried this on another pc.

Are you saying it does appear in the black bios screen at boot time ?

The drive appears to be spinning. I ran Knoppix to see if the
drive appeared but no luck (as external and internal on 2 pc's).

Thats pretty good evidence that its just died.

I found a utility called r-studio that recognizes the drive when plugged
in externally but it says it is 76gb when it is 60gb. r-studio will do a
surface scan. When I start it on the drive it has an i/o error frequently.

So is that.

I only let the test go for about 8 hrs and it was only about 5% done.

I've tried Dfsee but it does not see the drive either.

Could a read/wirte head failure cause these kinds of errors?
Yes.

I don't understand how windows can see the model number

Thats usually reported by the logic card on the drive.

A few drives do get that off the platters, but most dont.

but will not do anything else. Are there any other
utilities out there that may pinpoint the problem?

I need important tax information from this drive.

Maxtor 60gb DiamondMax PLus 9

See what Maxtor's diagnostic has to say about the drive.