How can I recover a "lost" HDD?

[noel54]

Hi all,

I have a 1 TB HDD that I'm unable to use. It won't show up in my BIOS with my other drives, in Control Panel/System under Drives or in Computer Management under Disk Management. It won't even show up in Partition Magic 8.0...

It seemed to be working properly until I tried use it for backup, but my backup program wouldn't recognize it, so I tried to re-format it and I found out it couldn't be formatted. Then I used the Command Prompt and went through Diskpart/List Disk/Select Disk/Clean and it seemed to clean, but it still won't format and I can't see it anywhere now.

What can I do to recover this drive?

Thanks, Noel

 

[ElenaP]

1. Check the connections (disk-to-motherboard, disk-to-PSU)
2. Try to connect the disk to another known-good computer to eliminate possible ATA port failure.

 

[Old Hippie]

If you can't see it in the BIOS when you boot it's probably dead and will need an RMA for resuscitation.

 

[lsv]

1. Check the connections (disk-to-motherboard, disk-to-PSU)
2. Try to connect the disk to another known-good computer to eliminate possible ATA port failure.

+1 for this first. If you don't have any luck it's probably dead.

 

[Russwinters]

After checking the easy stuff..


What is the brand/model of the drive?



Is it a Seagate 7200.11 by chance?


If so, what version "firmware" does it have? Its on the sticker.


Regards,

 

[noel54]

Thanks all for your comments. It's a WD 1TB Black, so it's supposed to be a good drive. From every indication I can find, it's dead. Even Killdisk won't touch it

I went to WD and they are giving me an "upgrade" to put it out of warranty - a 150GB raptor for $117, so I took it... I thought it was a good price and maybe I can also still revive this 1TB in the future, some way

Thanks again, Noel

 

[RebateMonger]

From every indication I can find, it's dead. Even Killdisk won't touch it

Yeah, your comments pretty much point to a dead hard drive. ALL hard drives fail eventually. Even the good ones. It's just a question of when. Assuming your hard drive will fail tomorrow is a good philosophy with hard drives.