URGENT: Recover hard drive?

[JD]

Originally Posted by geokilla

You the recovery tools or reparing tools that Seagate offers?

Have you tried accessing the hard drive with it installed on another computer? Like don't use that hard drive to boot up the OS and everything, just use it to get the data back.

Yeah, I'm plugging it into another PC. As it stands though no recovery software can access it since I can't actually mount a drive letter to it, nor does SpinRight see it in DOS.

It was barely working, still made POST hang for quite some time and XP (booting off a totally separate disk) was extremely slow.

Originally Posted by silent1mezzo

If that works I think you owe me a beer for finding the article I hope it works man, g'luck...

lol, I knew of it already, just never imagined it would ever work. And I'm still a year too young to buy beer

[JD]

Sadly no luck it seems. Though it appears to spin up fine now, but I think the controller or whatever must be broken since the BIOS doesn't detect it properly. Shows as Maxtor NP40 and 0MB, can't get it to do anything else.

[Arinoth]

To fix the controller you'd have to someone be able to by an identical HDD, swap the controllers, and see if the BIOS will recognize it there. Downside of that is you still end up with 1 dead HDD, and odds of finding someone selling that hdd is very slim since its relatively old.

[JD]

Originally Posted by Arinoth

To fix the controller you'd have to someone be able to by an identical HDD, swap the controllers, and see if the BIOS will recognize it there. Downside of that is you still end up with 1 dead HDD, and odds of finding someone selling that hdd is very slim since its relatively old.

lol yeah, how many 40GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8's do you honestly think are still alive to this day?

To be honest, I swear I had the same drive years ago and it died on me too. Was rather pissed off since I was just starting with the whole building computer stuff and didn't have any backups.

[KaptCrunch]

have you tried the freezer method

leave HDD in zip bag over night then try to boot HDD with bag still on and on ice packs

[ipaine]

Originally Posted by jdrom17

lol yeah, how many 40GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8's do you honestly think are still alive to this day?

Funny thing about that is only about a month or so ago I sent about 10 of those to be shredded and disposed. Got rid of pretty much all of the 40GB or less drives, well we did keep a couple of the old 5 1/4" 500MB drives.

[JD]

Originally Posted by KaptCrunch

have you tried the freezer method

leave HDD in zip bag over night then try to boot HDD with bag still on and on ice packs

That's what I tried. Didn't work though as it's not really for the problems I was having from what I've read. It's more if the hard drive doesn't spin up. Not for when the controller board craps out.

[Cadence]

I can vouch for the freezer method, just be sure you put it in a freezer-safe ziplock and that theres NO air in the bag, I also did this on a maxtor drive....maxtor drives ftl

[silent1mezzo]

Originally Posted by Cadence

I can vouch for the freezer method, just be sure you put it in a freezer-safe ziplock and that theres NO air in the bag, I also did this on a maxtor drive....maxtor drives ftl

Lol, he already tried, it didn't work

[MarcusXP]

If the drive can still be seen in bios, try "Hiren's Boot CD".
It has lots of tools for data recovery, might help.
If the drive can't be seen by the motherboard, you need professional help, but it costs a lot. Not sure if it worth, depending on what you have on that drive.