WD3200AAKS no longer in Windows or Disk Mngt but in BIOS and SeaTools

[jrgeoffrion]

I've been using a WD3200AAKS-00YGA0 in various USB and eSATA docks for the last year without any problem -- UNTIL about a week when I made changes to my system. There was no immediate cause and effect between the change and the drive no longer being recognized (and I don't remember the changes I made).

THE PROBLEM
My WD320 powers up but is no longer seen in "My Computer", the "Storage" utility of "Computer Management" or elsewhere in the system. HOWEVER, the BIOS does "see it" and if I load SeaTools, I can "see" the drive (drives don't have letter in SeaTools) and run all the Diagnostics -- which it passes with flying colors! Seagate DiskWizard also "sees" the drive and sees two partitions and labels them "unsupported".

Please note that I've tried two various docking station in both USB or eSATA, tried installing it in one of the internal SATA port as well as tried on two computers, one with Vista and one with XP. The docking stations are fine, the cables are fine, it's something with the drive that isn't.

QUESTION
I don't want to lose the data on the drive by simply re-installing it with Seagate DiskWizard. Would someone have an alternative solution for me to get the data of the drive or "mount" it in Windows without destroying the data on it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[LOUISSSSS]

have u already tried inserting it in another pc and see if it shows up there?

 

[jrgeoffrion]

Yup. One with Vista x64 and one with XP... It's there... but it's not... ;-)

Any tools that may help me?

 

[Rebel44]

I had same problem and it was resolved by Acronis True Image - Manage HDD - Discover new HDDs (or something like that), restarted PC and after that I was able to acces everything on that HDD.

 

[Old Hippie]

How about a nice little boot disk?

 

[jrgeoffrion]

I jsut tried ERD 2005 and couldn't see the drive...

Rebel: I looked into Acronis but when I'm about to hit "go" (or whatever) it states that it may erase data... So I'm not sure if it *may* or if it actually wipes the drive... they are not very clear about that...

Old Hippie: Will the boot disk help recover the MBR? The disk didn't have a system on it, just files and I'm thinking it's the MBR that is damaged or corrupted.

 

[Old Hippie]

The one in my link should let you grab the files and move them.

 

[jrgeoffrion]

Old Hippie: Thanks. I'm off to shoot a wedding and will try it tomorrow morning.

 

[jrgeoffrion]

First, thanks for all that helped!!

I tried ERD Commander 2005... but didn't find any option to recover the MBR... the disk trees were empty...

I then tried Acronis Disk Director and Acronis Disk Image but wouldn't deal with Dynamic Disks.

I found something called MBRWiz and just used the command line and the MBR was restored. From there, I went into Computer Management and imported the disk... Everything was there... And now I can sleep better knowing that there was nothing important on the disk...

Thanks again!