What's wrong with my HDD?

[KrypticMind]

So this morning, my PC did not move on from the Loading Windows screen. I left it there for half an hour just to be sure. After some testing, I've isolated it down to the HDD, a Hitachi HDS721616PLA380.

I tried to do the system repair in order to fix whatever it was that was causing me boot problems. The screen remained black after the loading screen, though. Next I tried to use my Windows 7 CD to boot system repair. After clicking Next on the language choice screen, the next part didn't appear. What confirmed that it was the HDD at fault was that I connected it to another PC, and the PC couldn't load as it usually did. When I disconnected the HDD, the PC booted up fine. I checked that the good drive had first priority boot. Perhaps I did something wrong?

Anyway, is there anything I can do to save the drive and boot from it again? Or is it dead and I'll have to get a new one?

 

[FishAk]

Is the dive recognized in BIOS?

Do you hear/feel it spool up?

Try putting it in an external enclosure, and running it with USB.

 

[KrypticMind]

Yeah, it's recognized in BIOS. I think it spools up.

Is running it from USB my only option now? Currently don't have such hardware.

 

[RebateMonger]

It doesn't sound promising. You can get a new 500 GB for $40 on sale and that's what I'd do.

If you want to try to copy off files, you'll need to get it recognized by a working PC. As noted, you can try hooking it up through various USB adapters and see if it's recognized. At that point, you can either copy off files (if it shows up as a formatted disk) or you can try various data recovery software. Or you can hand the disk off to a professional data recovery service.

For the future, if you don't have a backup system of some sort, consider implementing one so you won't lose important data when a disk fails. Disks are cheap and data recovery is expensive.

 

[KrypticMind]

I've just been using it as a boot drive while I store my stuff on another drive. Only important things I'd want to get are probably some Saved Games files that are annoying placed in My Docs instead of their respective folders where the game is installed. Currently thinking about picking up a 2TB Caviar Black, though, because I've been running out of space (blame Steam sales ).

I wish the drive WOULD be recognized in Windows on another PC... but I can't even boot into Windows when I connect it to another PC. So I guess next step would be USB adapters then?

 

[RebateMonger]

. So I guess next step would be USB adapters then?

Probably. But there's no guarantee it'll be accessible. It depends how bad the damage is.

Lots of SATA/IDE to USB adapter cables. Good for quick temporary connections.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ta+usb+adapter

SATA to USB docking stations. Can be used to hook up various SATA disks for quick examination or for backups.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ocking+station

 

[FishAk]

Just to carry the backup theme a step further, you can make images of your OS drive/partition, and keep them on another drive or two. This will keep you from loosing any info your various programs/games store on the OS partition, and allow you to easily and quickly move/recover your OS to another/the same drive, with all programs, updates, activations, tweaks, ect intact.

 

[KrypticMind]

Thanks for the links, RebateMonger. Do the adapter cables and docking stations basically work the same way? They'll both appear as like a flash drive or external drive? Just wondering for my wallet.

FishAk, thanks for the suggestion. I'm curious as to the file size of the image, though. Is there any compression?

 

[RebateMonger]

Thanks for the links, RebateMonger. Do the adapter cables and docking stations basically work the same way? They'll both appear as like a flash drive or external drive? Just wondering for my wallet.

Yeah, they do the same thing. and an adapter cable can be used with older IDE drives, too. But the docking stations are more practical for use as a backup solution where it's best if the attached disk could use at least some protection from accidental damage. The adapter cables are really for temporary use. I use docking stations for my personal server backups, leaving a disk inserted for a week and then swapping it for another.

 

[FishAk]

I'm curious as to the file size of the image, though. Is there any compression?

I use Macrium Reflect, which is free. I have little to no data files in my OS/programs partition. Any caching from FireFox, Google Earth, and the like is directed to another partition. This leaves my OS/program partition at about 21Gb used space. Using the default settings, my image files are about 1/2 of the used space (11.5Gb)

One thing about image files is that they are relatively fragile. As such, they are only completely reliable if they are original, and they aren't moved or disturbed with a defragger. For this reason, I always create a partition on the slowest part of my disks, dedicated to 3 or 4 images for each computer that can access the disk. The different images reflect different snapshots of the computer's history, similar to Windows Restore Points.