PLease HELP!! HDD dead?

[poster]

I have a backup HDD in my computer that I used for backing everything I have up. Suddenly during a bootup it said secondary HDD failure in my boot screen, and then it would not show up in the BIOS. I unplugged the IDE cable and power in the case, and now it shows up as "RAW" in WinXP with a 0 byte capacity. I did NOTHING to it that I know of to cause this. It's a Maxtor 30 GB drive. Does anyone know anything I can do to solve this problem? I've got years of stuff on it that I hope I haven't lost. Please help if you can.

 

[Viper96720]

?????? You unplugged it from the board and your saying now XP shows it as O bytes????

 

[kursplat]

I've got years of stuff on it that I hope I haven't lost. Please help if you can.

I have a backup HDD in my computer that I used for backing everything I have up.

is it truly a drive you backup to , or is it a place you've been saving stuff you don't want on your main drive ? was it making any noise before it died ? are youi running S.M.A.R.T. and if so did you get any warnings ?
you can get the MAXTOR drive utilities here. it might be able to tell you whats going on.

I unplugged the IDE cable and power in the case, and now it shows up as "RAW" in WinXP with a 0 byte capacity.

so you unplugged , then reconnected the drive and now it shows up as "RAW" ? have you tryed a new ribbon ?
good luck

 

[poster]

I unpluugged the drive and its power cord, then replugged everything the way it was. I changed nothing physically on the drive or its cables, just replaced them.

It was a drive I used to unclutter my C drive, just drag and drop. It now says RAW, as mentioned, and asks me if I want to format when I double click in XP.

 

[kursplat]

i would first , not power up the drive until you have a plan. if there is a physical problem with it your just taking life off it.
try the maxtor utilities to scan it for problems . i think 2 of the 3 test can be done without erasing any info.
if that comes up clean you can try a data recovery program like this one or do a forum search for other choices.
good luck