• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

One of my IDE HDDs isn't seen in PC

Muse

Muse

Lifer
Windows 2000, and I have 3 IDE drives, all Seagate Barracudas, 120, 160, 200 GB. The 120 is the boot drive and I suddenly can't see either of the two partitions of the 160 GB drive, which I use for backup and other data. One partition is NTFS, the other FAT32. Device Manager shows all three HDD's, and they are shown as working properly.

What's the first step in troubleshooting this? Is the drive dead? Wouldn't the 160 disappear from Device Manager if it weren't working or there was a cable problem? Thanks.
 
See if the HDD shows up in Disk manager. If it does, see if it is listed as online (probably not since it doesn't show up in windows explorer) Right click on drive and initialize to see if you can get it online. If it is online, maybe partitions got corrupted. Right click drive in disk manager go to properties > tools > error checking > check now. If it doesn't show up in disk manager, points to physical problem. See if it shows up in BIOS, swap cable out for another, try another header on the systemboard, double check jumpers.
good luck
 
Originally posted by: Green Man
See if the HDD shows up in Disk manager. If it does, see if it is listed as online (probably not since it doesn't show up in windows explorer) Right click on drive and initialize to see if you can get it online. If it is online, maybe partitions got corrupted. Right click drive in disk manager go to properties > tools > error checking > check now. If it doesn't show up in disk manager, points to physical problem. See if it shows up in BIOS, swap cable out for another, try another header on the systemboard, double check jumpers.
good luck
Click to expand...

I just swapped out the IDE cable, but it still isn't seen in Explorer. Disk Manager shows it as online but it doesn't show the partitions. It looks as if it weren't formatted, IOW. It says 149.04 GB free space! IOW, no partitions. Is there something I can maybe do to access my data? I don't think it's critical. Of my 3 HD's, this is the least critical, I believe. I will least miss losing its data. However, I'd prefer to bring it back to life rather than reformat. Besides, I have no guarantee that it won't happen again if I attempt to reformat it.

A few days ago I made wholesale changes in the box, but everything worked:

I removed Promise IDE PCI controller, a CDRW drive, swapped the NIC with that in another box, put the HDD's on the MB IDE channels, with a DVD-RW as the 4th IDE device, added a firewire card. Everything seemed to be working swimmingly, although I haven't used the firewire card. No problems seen in Device Manager. The box worked fine for several days, and the problem drive was working fine as well.

Right clicking the drive in Disk Manager doesn't bring up Properties for the drive.

What's the next step? The Seagate drive has a 5 year warranty (I think) and it's barely a year old. Thanks!

 
All 3 drives are on Cable Select. The drive does show up in the BIOS.

I guess I can remove the drive and install it in my other PC as see if it's likewise dead. If so, I guess I will have to RMA it. It would be my first HD casualty, so I guess I've been lucky. Have had at least 10

220 mb
420 mb
2.0 gb
2.4 gb
8 gb
40 gb
80 gb (3 of them)
120 gb
160 gb
200 gb

The 2.0 GB started developing bad sectors and I RMA'd it, giving Maxtor an extra $100 to get a 2.4 GB instead! This Seagate gave me no warning of problems, though.
 
If it shows online in device manager, the partitions are screwed up. Run seatools on the drive to check for errors. You may need data recovery on the HDD.
 
Originally posted by: Green Man
If it shows online in device manager, the partitions are screwed up. Run seatools on the drive to check for errors. You may need data recovery on the HDD.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will run Seatools. Thanks for the link.

I removed the drive and attached it as primary slave on my other PC and booted the box. The drive was seen, but for some reason the primary master drive wasn't seen either by Windows or the box's BIOS. I removed the drive and the primary master still isn't seen in the box. The box was working fine a few days ago, last time I turned it on. I don't know what to do about that other than swap out the primary IDE cable, but I'll leave that until later. Meantime, I've put the drive back in my main PC and rebooted and things are the same. Partition Magic 7.0 sees the drive and shows the 2 partitions in the extended DOS partition, but they are shown as unallocated. They were formatted one to NTFS, the other FAT32. I'll now download Seatools and see what happens. How would I do data recovery on the HDD? With Seatools?
 
I downloaded both the CD and floppy versions of Seatools but am running the online version at present. For some reason, it sees both my 160 GB and 200 GB drives as 137 GB capacity drives. So far, all drives are passing all tests. I'm doing a surface test (the short one) on the faulty drive right now and will see what happens. The long test will take who knows how long. Any tips on what to do? Thanks.

The short surface reported:

SeaTools Online 90 Second Surface Scan
Started at 12:16:56 PM on 1/11/2006.

Scanning drive: Primary IDE Channel : ST3160023A
Serial Number: 3LJ1NAV8
Capacity: 137.44 GB
Scan complete. No errors were found.
 
The thing is, Seatools can't see the file system of the drive because Windows can't see the partitions. Therefore, I can't run a file system check in Seatools. Maybe there's a way I can run chkdsk against the drive if I boot from a CD or floppy or run Seatools from same?
 
How can I fix the file system of the drive? Is that possible? The drive is seen, but it's partition table isn't being read, so how can I fix the file system? Is there some utility I can run that might sort out the file system? Thanks.

PS The system is Beauty in my sig.
 
Is there a way I can determine if the problem was caused by a virus or some other thing that might threaten my other HDDs? For the time being, I've swapped out the problem drive for a 80 GB drive I had lieing around, which I just reformatted as one NTFS partition. Until I get the fixed or a replacement 160 GB drive in the machine I will back up data to the 80 GB drive. But I have to wonder if a similar and potentially catastrophic problem is in the offing. Thanks again.
 
I always use Master/Slave settings my IDE devices, and as long as they are set right, I've never had any problems. I don't know if it is certain chipsets or what, but sometimes drives just don't like to play well together using CS. That is probably the case on your other PC. And some drives (WD I think) need a different jumper setting as Master depending on whether they are the only drive or paired with a slave.

Good luck!!
 
1. Go to "Control Panel"
2. Open "Administrative Tools"
3. Open "Computer Management"
4. Under "Storage", click on "Disk Management"- you should now be able to see all of your drives. You'll have different options as what you can do to them i.e. format, mark partion as active, etc.

You can decide what you want to do from here.
 
Originally posted by: cheapherk
1. Go to "Control Panel"
2. Open "Administrative Tools"
3. Open "Computer Management"
4. Under "Storage", click on "Disk Management"- you should now be able to see all of your drives. You'll have different options as what you can do to them i.e. format, mark partion as active, etc.

You can decide what you want to do from here.
Click to expand...
I see the problem drive in there and it is shown as "Online", however it isn't shown as "Healthy" and I don't see the two partitions I had, one NTFS the other FAT32.

I suppose I could try to format the drive and proceed, however I would lose all my data if I do so. I presume that the problem occurred due to a defect in the HD. That might not be the case, but I suppose it is likely due to a drive defect. So, unless I can figure out a way to restore the partition table to the drive I figure I'll be contacting Seagate for an RMA. Does anyone have an idea of how I can save the data on that drive? I don't want to buy a $500 software in an effort to do so. The data isn't worth that much to me. Is there a cheap or free way I can possibly restore the drive to working condition? I cannot run chkdsk against the drive because it's not seen by the operating system - IOW, it doesn't get a drive letter.

 
Started another thread

Seagate support said to do a full scan with Seatools, so I did and it came up with no errors. However, when I tried to format the drive into two partitions, the first one came out alright, but the second will not format. I'll call Seagate tomorrow and expect to RMA the drive.
 
I posted in newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (See thread here) and it was suggested that I lost the data due to lack of 48-bit LBA support on my machine. I believe my mainboard has the support (the BIOS), but Windows 2000 introduced 48-bit LBA support with SP3. I do have SP4 installed, however 48-bit LBA support is still not in effect until you create a special entry in the Windows registry: See this MS support page

It states:

? A computer with a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) installed.
? A computer with a hard disk that has a capacity of greater than 137 gigabytes (GB).
? You must enable the support in the Windows registry by adding or changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1 in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters

To enable 48-bit LBA large-disk support in the registry:
1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters

3. On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:

Value name: EnableBigLba
Data type: REG_DWORD

Value data: 0x1 (Muse note: just make it 1, don't enter 0x1 !!!)

4. Quit Registry Editor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top