Hardrive crash. Need Help NOW!!!

[FFactory0x]

My mom needs a paper off the computer and the hardrive just crashed. We have a backup someone but I have no lcue where it is.

Basically, windows just reboots at splash screen.

I attached it as a slave to my computer and the computer shows it as a 1.93gb. It is a 40gb!

I try accessing it and it says drive isnt formatted. Format now. Asl othe error check utility just disappears when i hit start. What to do. Shee needs this for tommorow

 

[CyberChild]

I sincerely hate to tell you this, but from my experience your drive is toast. I work in an IT department and I've seen this exact scenario many times. If you believe your drive is damaged, hooking it up as a slave drive is always the first step. Just make absolutely sure that you have the jumper on the drive set to slave and the jumper on your primary drive set to "master" (as opposed to Cable Select). If you cannot get Windows to recognize the correct drive properties and/or contents configured as a slave, you are dealing with a mechanical failure of the drive. Alternitively, if you connect the drive as a slave and Windows correctly idetifies it and you can view the file contents then the drive is just suffering from some form of file corruption. When a drive fails mechanically, it can only be serviced by specially equiped service centers. There they can actually disassemble the drive and manually search the platters for data. This process is extremely expensive and is not affordable to most home users. I have had to go through this process once for work and the final bill was close to $10,000 for a RAID array. Suffice to say that even proclaimed power users do not have the ability to do this. Given what you are describing, I would say that your drive is beyond practical repair. I hope other forum member might chime in with other ideas, but again, from my experience, you're screwed and the data is lost (unless you can afford the recovery service). If you want a better idea of a hard drive recovery service check out this link as it is extremely informative.

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050530/index.html

 

[SolMiester]

Agreed cyber!

 

[jackschmittusa]

You could try the manufacture's free diagnostic utility

What " the computer shows it as a 1.93gb", the bios or Windows?

 

[cuti7399]

try this:
put the drive into the freezer for 1hr. take it out, install it and get the data as quickly as possible.
Worked for me and i'm not kidding

 

[waitman]

Originally posted by: cuti7399
try this:
put the drive into the freezer for 1hr. take it out, install it and get the data as quickly as possible.
Worked for me and i'm not kidding

Yep, me too. But, it didn't last long, so if it works for you, don't waste any time. Get the info off it in a hurry! Good luck.

 

[andyd00]

LOL I've never thought of that.

 

[birdpup]

Originally posted by: FFactory0x
My mom needs a paper off the computer and the hardrive just crashed. We have a backup someone but I have no lcue where it is.

Basically, windows just reboots at splash screen.

I attached it as a slave to my computer and the computer shows it as a 1.93gb. It is a 40gb!

I try accessing it and it says drive isnt formatted. Format now. Asl othe error check utility just disappears when i hit start. What to do. Shee needs this for tommorow

Is it too late to contribute?

"hardrive just crashed" is a vague description of the situation and it is difficult to assist without more specific information. What happened at the time? What happened before this? Were any software or drivers installed within a day before this happened? Were there any recent system configuration changes? Did a Blue error screen appear with an error message? Has the system shown any instability previous to this occurrence? Does the hard drive make any unusual noise?

Clicking sounds from the drive may indicate mechanical failure, which the freezer method may help with.

Does the bios recognize the drive?

What brand is the drive? It may help to run the manufacturer's diagnostic utility on the system to see if any error result.
How old and stable is the building wiring? Is the system plugged into a UPS backup battery with undervoltage protection to stabilize incoming power to the electronically fragile computer parts?

If the system boots to the splash screen, it seems the drive is recognized without mechanical error. This would point to filesystem corruption probably due to electrical power disruption in the form of a power spike or dip.

It seems the drive has already been moved from its original configuration so, like CyberChild mentioned, ensure the drive jumpers are properly placed as slave or master according to its current position and that any other drive on the same cable also has its jumper properly placed. I believe Seagate likes CS for Cable Select but when problems occur, it is best to manually configure the jumpers to remove any possible source of errors. Double and triple check the jumper settings for each drive on the cable since these are easily forgotten during drive troubleshooting.

It may help to use a Rescue Disk or Linux LiveCD to operate an operating system and attempt to access the troubled drive. UBCD4Win is a good choice. It may also help attaching the drive to another system as a Slave drive as already attempted. In this attempt, it is possible the drive jumpers were not properly configured, possibly resulting in the incorrect disk size recognition.

Read through the link in my signature for various resources available.