Hard drive not seen in BIOS! Help

[dstambaugh]

Hello

I'm pretty sure this drive is dead. The BIOS on this 8 year old computer can't see it, nor can Win98. Please note this is NOT my computer. I was trying to reinstall Win98 on the Master HD in this system when this HD gave out (which would easily explain the constant BSOD's in Win98, the reason for this re-install). It was working before. The drive is 500MBs in size (or less) and is formatted with FAT16. It is a Quantum drive. This drive holds all of the files my friend uses for his personal business. YES, I KNOW, I have been telling him for years to backup his data off of this worthless drive and then trash it, but he didn't listen.

I know the drive has power and I think it is spinning up. However, there is a clicking sound it makes whenever the BIOS is trying to read it. I want to know if there is any software out there that can read a drive not seen by the BIOS.

Here is a list of my troubleshooting efforts so far:

• Put it on the secondary IDE channel
  Made it the only drive in the system
  Tried it in another computer
  Tried the freezer trick for 1/2 an hour
  Booted with BartPE/WinXP Home
  Booted with Knoppix 3.9 (Linux LiveCD)

In no case was I able to see the drive. No software used so far could tell that it was even connected, like it wasn't even there. I have searched my large inventory of mid-90's computer hardware for a similar drive but couldn't find any. I would have tried swapping the circuit board on it.

Since no software I've used so far can see this drive, I am not expecting any resolution other than "Try a data recovery specialist". But please, do you know of any low-level software that might be able to get into it? Damn, I kept telling him this would happen....

 

[ScrapSilicon]

I wouldn't believe you would try to reinstall Win98 over an existing install on a 500MB harddrive..it would run out of space ime ..it's upgrade time anyway

 

[dstambaugh]

this dead HD is the slave in this system....I was trying to reinstall Win98 to his Master HD, which is a "good" hard drive. Anyways, this isn't my computer, I have been trying to persuade the guy to get rid of it and get a new computer, but he doesn't want to spend the money.

 

[Check]

I'm suprised the thing lasted that long, although some of those old ones were tanks.

Time to buy a new harddrive

 

[stevty2889]

Try the freezer trick. That was happening to one of my drives, it was clicking at bios detection. I stuck it in the freezer for an hour, re-installed it in the PC, bios detected it, and I recovered 40gb worth of data..

 

[xgsound]

This sounds bad. The only hope I see is with Quantum utilities, or utilities from the "Ultimate Boot CD". The hope is that the MBR or translation table got corrupted and can be rebuilt without scattering the data. Some of the manufacturer's utilities will work on other brands if thier brand is present on the system.

These drive utilities usually work at a very basic hardware level (often booted from floppy) and CAN recognize the drive even if the bios does not as long as the machine posts.

I don't know if this could help you get the data, but until the bios recognizes the drive, I see no other hope.


Jim

 

[dstambaugh]

Thanks for your suggestions. I put the drive in the freezer overnight, and tried it again this morning. That didn't work. I tried the POWMax utility (Ver 4.21, drive utility program) from Maxtor (owner of Quantum drives now) and that didn't work. I then downloaded, burned and tried several utilities off of the Ultimate Boot CD, but it is no use. This drive is toast. Perhaps the owner will seek professional recovery services.

Thanks to everyone for their help.