Bad drive possible how to access..

[Intexity]

So I bought a WD Green terrabyte drive on Sunday because my computer was locking up after about 10 minutes or so of using it. Restarts were the same way. Instead of testing which one was the culprit (or for fear of loosing everything no backups bad hippy!) I ran like hell to worst buy for a replacement.
So after setting it up and playing with the drives the problem seems to lie with my 500 gig hd being connected to the computer. I have my old main drive currently connected to my computer running on the new drive with no problems.
I have no clue about how hard drives fail (I will admit this is my first but hell I started only 5 years ago and this is my fourth or fifth computer (up until now I settled). So what are the stress points on this drive? Does using an external device have any effect? Is this something I should send off? If I stress test it will that kill it? Is one way of extracting data less abusive than another?
Thanks to any and all for their expertise I was too busy studying processors and such...D'Oh!
Oh and my build is in my signature.

 

[Slowlearner]

1. Is the data really worth all that trouble and expense? If it is very valuable and you are prepared to spend lots of money - dont mess around - go to any of the following who have clean rooms and other specialized facilities:

Ontrack http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ or
Seagate http://services.seagate.com/consumer_solutions.aspx or
ESS Data Recovery http://www.essdatarecovery.com/ or
CBL Data Recovery http://www.cbltech.ca/ (US & Canada)
Forenic Strategy http://www.myharddrivedied.com/
http://www.drivesavers.com/

Specializes in Logical Data Recovery:
Dave Mason http://www.davemason.com/drdavesdatarecovery.html

2. If all you have some pictures and documents that you would like to retrieve, and the drive is NOT mechanically damaged (clicking/scratching sounds and such), then follow these steps:

First check if the drive can be read - do all this on a working computer with the bad drive set as the secondary drive (bios setting may have to changed) - does the bios recognize the drive? if Yes, then Windows Disk Management see it? May have to import it.

Second, if the bios recognizes it but Windows doesnt- get TestDisk free from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download - read the TestDisk StepbyStep document first - and if it sees the directories and files: see if it will fix the problem.

Third, if TestDisk can't fix the problem - download GetDataBack available for DOS or NTFS - if you were using Win XP you were using NTFS - http://www.runtime.org/ - read their instructions carefully, consider the image option if the drive seems to be failing. Run GetDataBack off the C: drive and see what it can recover - it will not recover everything and have trouble if you have bad sectors on the hard drive - so you will have to manually override some files - it may take a couple of hours - it took about 90 min to check out a 80GB WD HD with some 45gigs - once it is done it will display all the directories and files - you can even review the files - if you see the files you want to keep - sign on to their website and purchase a license 79$ for the NTFS version, enter that it in the software and start copying those files to the main hard drive (after checking for free space).

There is a similar programs called Recover My Files available from http://www.getdata.com/ - similar in scope and pricing. http://www.nucleustechnologies.com/

 

[Intexity]

weirdest thing i tried starting the computer with all three and it jammed (it booted to my original drive) i disconnected all drives but the new one and got a boot cfg missing file (if i remember right). did a restart and was fine. then hooked up the original primary drive set up the bios to boot to the new drive (which came up as external???wtf?) and was able to copy my files i needed. i then connected the 500 gig and was able to get to the files to copy. so i guess its good but i am left mystified as to what the hell happened. any clues?
thanks for the input

 

[Slowlearner]

Good that you were able to recover your data without much hassle.

The drive is probably still good, and all that it needs is a chkdisk to be run on it to fix any errors. Download WDs Datalifeguard tools and run it on the drive.

 

[RebateMonger]

If connecting a hard drive causes your computer to lock up, then there's serious issues with that hard drive. Toss it or RMA it. Bad drives do NOT get better.

 

[Intexity]

ok i am no longer sure its a hard drive. just tried to boot into windows from the new drive with no other drives connected. and it gave me a insert boot media into selected device message with no boot. went into the bios boot order and no drive showed up at all.... so i selected boot from other media and it booted to my hard drive. do i have to update my bios???? or is my 680i obsolete alreadly?

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: Intexity
ok i am no longer sure its a hard drive. just tried to boot into windows from the new drive with no other drives connected. and it gave me a insert boot media into selected device message with no boot. went into the bios boot order and no drive showed up at all.... so i selected boot from other media and it booted to my hard drive. do i have to update my bios???? or is my 680i obsolete alreadly?

do you have this drive on a different sata port? go into bios go to your boot options and just set that drive to your first boot option.

 

[Intexity]

did that already and still had the boot issue what confuses me is that the drive doesn't even show up in the bios. going to do a bios update as soon as i dig out the 3.5 drive and install it. wondering if my sata connections are having issues on the board....

 

[Intexity]

oh and as a side note i have a blue light that is flickering on the mobo.... going to research that now

 

[Intexity]

well a bios flash fixed the drive in the bios issue. weird went on live update and it updated me from 1.30 to 1.30 haven't reconnected the other drives yet. curious about the flashing blue light now. didn't find anything on that so far. it is right next to the cmos battery and seems to flicker irregularly. any ideas why it would do that? is it a sign my battery is getting week?

 

[Gunbuster]

Honestly you sound totally clueless. Find out what the light is for, also known as RTFM

I would suspect your power supply is too wimpy or going bad.

 

[Intexity]

reading the manual is of no use the stupid light isn't even mentioned so...
edit-called in and tech support had no idea what was the blue light was or what it meant. so after doing a cmos clear everything looks to be good now. if it gives me any more issues i am using it for target practice....