HDD Recovery

[jamesbond007]

I'm trying to recover some data from a dead HDD. It's a Maxtor N40P 40GB - probably 4 years old now the owner says.

Anyways, I plug it into one of my test bed rigs since the disk will no longer boot into Windows. The BIOS recognizes the disk fine (Maxtor, 40GB, ATA100, etc) however when booting into Windows, the drive is nowhere to be found! The HDD activity light stays on 100% of the time when the disk is plugged in. I've tried booting my OnTrack 6 recovery disk, but even in DOS, the disk cannot be found or accessed. FDISK does not show it either.

Any other ideas before I tell the customer they're SOL?

EDIT: It also does not appear in Disk Management or in the Device Manager list either.

 

[Markbnj]

Sounds like the onboard electronics are working fine, and that's whay the BIOS sees it, but there is no partition and/or logical drive that Windows can see.

 

[LouPoir]

Front porch light is on - no one home --

 

[ShellGuy]

have you tryed it via usb enclosuer???



will G

 

[ch33zw1z]

Tell him he's SOL, and make $$ selling him a backup system FTW!! (i want 15% for giving you the idea) 😛

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: ShellGuy
have you tryed it via usb enclosuer???



will G

No, but I refuse to. I've had *FAR* better luck when the drive is connected directly to the computer via IDE/SATA.

Markbnj, right, but typically OnTrack sees everything, whether the disk has been formatted, new, and what-not. I just don't get it.

 

[SKORPI0]

R-Studio 3

 

[Jiggz]

Is the hdd spinning? It could be a stock platter. Do you hear a clicking sound during the boot? It could be a stock read arm? In the old days we try un-stocking by vigorous back and forth spinning in the horizontal.

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
Is the hdd spinning? It could be a stock platter. Do you hear a clicking sound during the boot? It could be a stock read arm? In the old days we try un-stocking by vigorous back and forth spinning in the horizontal.

Yes, it spins up. There are no 'nasty clicking' sounds or anything like that. Sounds like it should be operating normally, but I cannot access it.