Help!

[Guest]

I have a Western Digital WD2500 Caviar SE drive. Every since I updated the
bios on my MB(MSI K9n Diamond, bios 1.4), the PC would not boot up or it
booted slowly, then it would freeze (Vista 64-bit. I also just swapped my
Opteron 1212 for an X2 5600+), then I would have to keep resetting from the
PSU. I eventually got it working well now, but during the course of this,
the drive in question (a storage drive with all of my MP3's starting from
1997!) has been appearing in "My Computer" sometimes, but not all of the
time. I would tighten the cables and it would reappear. Then after another
boot, it is gone again.

I heard about a week ago during a boot a 'screeching' noise. I did not know
which drive it was ( I have 6) so I could not isolate it. It turns out it
was the drive in question. NOW, it does not show at all! Not in "My
Computer" or in the Disk Management. HOWEVER, IT DOES show in the
bios(clear drive name) and it does show in "device manager" as working well!
Even when I change the SATA slot, Vista installs the driver. This is a new
problem that I have yet to face in my PC skills. I uninstalled the MB
drivers and reinstalled them (with driver cleaner), I changed the power
plugs and SATA cables/slots, I felt it while booting to feel and hear
activity and there is some and it sounds rather ok, but it appears to be
non-existent! I need help. I made a minor backup of some MP3's, but I have
some rare 12" singles and some other stuff on there that I need to get off!

My experience has been that if the drive is not recognized in the bios, it
is more likely than not dead. If it is recognized in the bios but not in
Windows, it is a Windows problem. However, I have not problem on my other
drives except for C when I had booting problems. I did run chechdisk and it
did find problems on this and C and corrected them. C seems to be fine now,
but this one has the above issues. I need to save this. After this, I
won't buy WD anymore!

 

[ShutEye]

Do you have SMART enabled and if so what does it say?
Go to WD's homepage and get a diagnostic tool for your drive.
If what you have on the disk is important enough you can pay (quite a lot)
to get it retrieved, it's almost never really gone.

 

[Guest]

I have a Western Digital WD2500 Caviar SE drive. Every since I updated the
bios on my MB(MSI K9n Diamond, bios 1.4), the PC would not boot up or it
booted slowly, then it would freeze (Vista 64-bit. I also just swapped my
Opteron 1212 for an X2 5600+), then I would have to keep resetting from the
PSU. I eventually got it working well now, but during the course of this,
the drive in question (a storage drive with all of my MP3's starting from
1997!) has been appearing in "My Computer" sometimes, but not all of the
time. I would tighten the cables and it would reappear. Then after
another boot, it is gone again.

I heard about a week ago during a boot a 'screeching' noise. I did not
know which drive it was ( I have 6) so I could not isolate it. It turns
out it was the drive in question. NOW, it does not show at all! Not in
"My Computer" or in the Disk Management. HOWEVER, IT DOES show in the
bios(clear drive name) and it does show in "device manager" as working
well! Even when I change the SATA slot, Vista installs the driver. This
is a new problem that I have yet to face in my PC skills. I uninstalled
the MB drivers and reinstalled them (with driver cleaner), I changed the
power plugs and SATA cables/slots, I felt it while booting to feel and
hear activity and there is some and it sounds rather ok, but it appears to
be non-existent! I need help. I made a minor backup of some MP3's, but I
have some rare 12" singles and some other stuff on there that I need to
get off!

My experience has been that if the drive is not recognized in the bios, it
is more likely than not dead. If it is recognized in the bios but not in
Windows, it is a Windows problem. However, I have not problem on my other
drives except for C when I had booting problems. I did run chechdisk and
it did find problems on this and C and corrected them. C seems to be fine
now, but this one has the above issues. I need to save this. After this,
I won't buy WD anymore!

CORRECTION: It is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8. It just so happens to be the
only Seagate drive also...

 

[ShutEye]

CORRECTION: It is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8. It just so happens to be

the only Seagate drive also...

Well then ... off to SG's homepage then

 

[Lepak Nerat]

Well then ... off to SG's homepage then

I had a similar problem, SMART was telling me it was fine but whenever
vista used it it would bomb out and stop accessing.
It turned out it was a pin failure on the HDD
I had to do some very clever and small soldering to get the pin placed
back, 15 WATT solder iron any more and risk melting the entire PCB.
use a magnifying glass too!
if you have to do it good luck.
plus i also used: GetDataBack NTFS (www.runtime.org) to ensure I got
everything i wanted off the drive before i junked it. think the drive
was WD, 2yrs old just over warranty

 

[Guest]

I had a similar problem, SMART was telling me it was fine but whenever
vista used it it would bomb out and stop accessing.
It turned out it was a pin failure on the HDD
I had to do some very clever and small soldering to get the pin placed
back, 15 WATT solder iron any more and risk melting the entire PCB.
use a magnifying glass too!
if you have to do it good luck.
plus i also used: GetDataBack NTFS (www.runtime.org) to ensure I got
everything i wanted off the drive before i junked it. think the drive was
WD, 2yrs old just over warranty

Oh. I have SMART set at auto in the bios. Everything seems fine, but I
MUST have these files. Man I wish blur ray burners were cheaper then I
would not have this issue.

 

[ShutEye]

Oh. I have SMART set at auto in the bios. Everything seems fine, but I

MUST have these files. Man I wish blur ray burners were cheaper then I
would not have this issue.

Blue-Ray can stand the test of time?
Not what I've heard!

 

[Guest]

Blue-Ray can stand the test of time?
Not what I've heard!

I was speaking of storage space to save files in the case of another problem
like this happening.

 

[ShutEye]

Blue-Ray can stand the test of time?

I was speaking of storage space to save files in the case of another
problem like this happening.

I guessed that much
Just remember to backup those blue-rays before they get corrupted as well.
(or rot away

 

[Arno Wagner]

Everything seems fine, but I MUST have these files. Man I wish
blur ray burners were cheaper then I would not have this issue.

I would suggest that you try professuional data recovery. It is your
best bet.

Arno

 

[Guest]

I would suggest that you try professuional data recovery. It is your
best bet.

Arno

Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the average PC
user knows.

 

[Kevin Weaver]

Does it matter what they know ? It's there job. They get paid to do that
job.

I've sent a hard drive to on-track that a client had which there employee
had wiped it clean. Quess what, It came back 100% recovered.

Your about a year out before your going to see blue ray start to come down
in price.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the
average PC user knows.

Not data recovery by "professionals". Data recovery by "data
recovery professionals". For example Ontrack, Seagate, Vogon, etc..

Arno

 

[merlin]

[...]
Everything seems fine, but I MUST have these files. Man I wish
blur ray burners were cheaper then I would not have this issue.
I would suggest that you try professuionaldata recovery. It is your
best bet.
Arno

Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the
average PC user knows.

Notdata recoveryby "professionals".Data recoveryby "datarecoveryprofessionals". For example Ontrack, Seagate, Vogon, etc..

Arno

Wise words indeed Arno.
there are just far too many "professionals" with neither academic
qualifications nor years of experience. many work from a mobile
telephone.

My advice for what its worth:
* Check their websites, its a good pointer.
* look for, or request "reference customers"
* Watch out for scams, no fix - no charge is a classic ( ever see a
bar that says 'not drunk' no charge ?)
* Ring the companies claiming 24/7 service and see if its just a
telephone answering service ?

I would also include 'Aurora Data Recovery' - a Swedish data recovery
company, on your list. Especially interesting for European customers,
or for customers that are doubtful of prices or security issues with
American owned corporations.

http://www.aurora.se

Cheers/ Sandro

 

[Arno Wagner]

[...]
Everything seems fine, but I MUST have these files. Man I wish
blur ray burners were cheaper then I would not have this issue.

I would suggest that you try professuionaldata recovery. It is your
best bet.

Arno
Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the
average PC user knows.

Not data recovery by "professionals". Data recovery by "data
recovery professionals". For example Ontrack, Seagate, Vogon, etc..

Arno

Wise words indeed Arno.
there are just far too many "professionals" with neither academic
qualifications nor years of experience. many work from a mobile
telephone.

Hehe. I have done a bit of data recovery myself, but it was for
a) not too critical data and b) a disk and failure mode I knew
(overheated Maxtor). Basically I used dd_rescue to pull some
config files from the disks, which had with a lot of grown
defectes (>1000). a) is the important point here.

My advice for what its worth:
* Check their websites, its a good pointer.
* look for, or request "reference customers"
* Watch out for scams, no fix - no charge is a classic ( ever see a
bar that says 'not drunk' no charge ?)

I don't quite follow you here...

* Ring the companies claiming 24/7 service and see if its just a
telephone answering service ?

Good one.

I would also include 'Aurora Data Recovery' - a Swedish data recovery
company, on your list. Especially interesting for European customers,
or for customers that are doubtful of prices or security issues with
American owned corporations.

http://www.aurora.se

Well, Ontrack and Vogon at least have ouropean offices and labs.

Arno

 

[Guest]

[...]
Everything seems fine, but I MUST have these files. Man I wish
blur ray burners were cheaper then I would not have this issue.

I would suggest that you try professuionaldata recovery. It is your
best bet.

Arno
Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the
average PC user knows.

Not data recovery by "professionals". Data recovery by "data
recovery professionals". For example Ontrack, Seagate, Vogon, etc..

Arno

Wise words indeed Arno.
there are just far too many "professionals" with neither academic
qualifications nor years of experience. many work from a mobile
telephone.

Hehe. I have done a bit of data recovery myself, but it was for
a) not too critical data and b) a disk and failure mode I knew
(overheated Maxtor). Basically I used dd_rescue to pull some
config files from the disks, which had with a lot of grown
defectes (>1000). a) is the important point here.

My advice for what its worth:
* Check their websites, its a good pointer.
* look for, or request "reference customers"
* Watch out for scams, no fix - no charge is a classic ( ever see a
bar that says 'not drunk' no charge ?)

I don't quite follow you here...

* Ring the companies claiming 24/7 service and see if its just a
telephone answering service ?

Good one.

I would also include 'Aurora Data Recovery' - a Swedish data recovery
company, on your list. Especially interesting for European customers,
or for customers that are doubtful of prices or security issues with
American owned corporations.

http://www.aurora.se

Well, Ontrack and Vogon at least have ouropean offices and labs.

Arno

Clearly I have been away. That is because I was trying to get my system
back on track. For those who may have a similar problem, I will tell you
what happened.

My HD was a 'dynamic disk' instead of a basic. I am assuming that in Vista,
it may have acted as a RAID type of deal since it was invisible. I since
converted it to a basic disk and I had to use R-Studio (the best I have used
for this) to recover those valuable files. It was exactly as it was before
the loss. The HD is fine and I found out that that was not even the one
doing the screeching! I think it was My Raptor. Luckily I did not have to
go to extremes to get my files back.

 

[Arno Wagner]

[...]
Everything seems fine, but I MUST have these files. Man I wish
blur ray burners were cheaper then I would not have this issue.

I would suggest that you try professuionaldata recovery. It is your
best bet.

Arno
Like who? Most of these 'professionals' don't even knowwhat the
average PC user knows.

Not data recovery by "professionals". Data recovery by "data
recovery professionals". For example Ontrack, Seagate, Vogon, etc..

Arno

Wise words indeed Arno.
there are just far too many "professionals" with neither academic
qualifications nor years of experience. many work from a mobile
telephone.

Hehe. I have done a bit of data recovery myself, but it was for
a) not too critical data and b) a disk and failure mode I knew
(overheated Maxtor). Basically I used dd_rescue to pull some
config files from the disks, which had with a lot of grown
defectes (>1000). a) is the important point here.

My advice for what its worth:
* Check their websites, its a good pointer.
* look for, or request "reference customers"
* Watch out for scams, no fix - no charge is a classic ( ever see a
bar that says 'not drunk' no charge ?)

I don't quite follow you here...

* Ring the companies claiming 24/7 service and see if its just a
telephone answering service ?

Good one.

I would also include 'Aurora Data Recovery' - a Swedish data recovery
company, on your list. Especially interesting for European customers,
or for customers that are doubtful of prices or security issues with
American owned corporations.

http://www.aurora.se

Well, Ontrack and Vogon at least have ouropean offices and labs.

Arno

Clearly I have been away. That is because I was trying to get my system
back on track. For those who may have a similar problem, I will tell you
what happened.

My HD was a 'dynamic disk' instead of a basic. I am assuming that in Vista,
it may have acted as a RAID type of deal since it was invisible. I since
converted it to a basic disk and I had to use R-Studio (the best I have used
for this) to recover those valuable files. It was exactly as it was before
the loss. The HD is fine and I found out that that was not even the one
doing the screeching! I think it was My Raptor. Luckily I did not have to
go to extremes to get my files back.

Very good. Congratulations on a successful recovery!

Arno