Confirm my hard drive is dead please

[Bond007]

Hey all. My desktop just decided all of a sudden that it was not going to go to windows at all. It says to connect a bootable device. I go in to the bios and it is not showing the hard drive as connected (sata ports all say "not detected"...dvd is old school ide). Brought the hard drive to another computer and hooked it up...coming up not detected on that computer as well.

Questions:

1. Is there another step required to have a second hard drive work on a computer other than connecting the sata and power then booting it up (haven't worked with multiple HDD before)?

2. Any more trouble shooting you can recommend before I order a new drive?

3. If it is dead is there any way to attempt to get some data off it when it won't show up in my bios as a drive?

Unfortunately I think I have done what I can and that a new drive is required, but I thought I would ask before ordering in case all of the more experienced people may have a trick or two to offer that might help. Otherwise I guess my HDD kicked the bucket at just about the 3.5 year mark.

[vandidant]

1. Most motherboard I've seen are configured out of the box to detect new hdd's. I suppose there could be some settings that could be changed to disable the sata controllers etc, you could reset cmos if you want to be sure (pulling the battery or pressing the reset button if your mobo has one)

2. I'd tell you to check the S.m.a.r.t. info, but since your PC cannot detect the drive that probably won't work. I'd say plug in another drive to figure out if the problem is with the drive or the sata controller, i.e. if you plug in another drive and it's detected working well then this drive would be what's problematic

3. There's a myth that if the pcb is the problem but you can hear the spindle spinning and actuator moving, then you can buy an identical drive and swap the pcb to make the drive work again. Though I've never heard of it being done reliably in practice, just something to consider before spending big money on professional recovery service lol. I suppose it also depends on how important the data is to you, obviously if it's very important then don't touch the drive and seek professional data recovery.

Good luck!

[Bond007]

Any more help out there?

[SugarJ]

Did you try changing the SATA cable as well? If it's not visible in BIOS, it's likely toast.

[Bond007]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

Did you try changing the SATA cable as well? If it's not visible in BIOS, it's likely toast.

I did try a cable change and a power connector change. As I feared.

Now......the $30 dollar question....do I go for another seagate 7200.12 only 1TB this time, or spend the extra on a WD Black 1TB?

[Perineum]

Do you need the speed of a Black? Perhaps a blue is better?

Which has a longer warranty?

Price and warranty are my only concerns now.