Re: WD 40GB hard drive unreadable? Help needed!
- From: "Kevin" <webman6@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 08:26:06 -0700
"S.Lewis" <stew1960@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:K5hui.250$eO1.92@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Kevin" <webman6@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46b943d7$0$509$815e3792@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error
message of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8
on a restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of
Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to
hit F2 or F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The
lights on the back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on
startup.
The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting
the system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I
have never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am
just guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears
inputs are minimal.
I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and
the Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found.
An attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk
Found.
I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged
it into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device.
But it did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen
in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and
checking the properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size.
When I would remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and
then plug it back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it
received power. It spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets
warm, so it is apparently spinning away inside there.
I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave.
No change.
So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other
way to see the drive and get data off of it?
Nice job attempting to save the day.
From everything you've done and especially since disk manager won't even
recognize the volume, she's taken the dirt nap, imo.
And as someone else pointed out, replace the drive and purchase an
external USB drive for buture backup - they're very inexpensive anymore.
Stew
Thanks to everyone for the great replies! And thanks to you, Stew, for the
help. I figured it was DOA but wanted to see what other opinions were out
there. As a absolute last resort I'll stick the drive in the freezer and
give it one last try but I won't hold my breath for a good result. And,
yes, I've already given my friend a quick lesson in keeping his data backed
up. Fortunately, there is nothing really critical on the drive, just some
photos and a few emails. Thanks to all.
.
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