undetected harddrive in win xp

[richie2k5]

my brother tried downloading an upgrade for his Norton Securit
software on his win xp, which has expired. but was then told t
install something thats missing which linked him to the Microsof
Website. once he downloaded it his computer crached. now his BIO
does not recognize his harddrive. each time he restarts the memor
count runs but then pauses for sometime, but then coutinues as:

Detecting IDE drives....
Primary master: none
primary slave: none

The screen then moves normal. then the screen says:

Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Disk Boot Failure
insert system disk and press enter.

I swapped the hard drive with one that has win xp, and then the O
opens to it's desktop. i know now the harddrive controller is good.

I restarted the computer with the win xp cd, and tried going into th
repair windows option srceen to see if it can see the hard drive. th
screen showed:

Setup didnot find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

My brother haven't backup any of his inportant files in over a month
and doesnot want to lose them. is it possible to bring back this har
drive alive .

thanx for any help in advance

 

[Rod Speed]

my brother tried downloading an upgrade for his Norton Security
software on his win xp, which has expired. but was then told to
install something thats missing which linked him to the Microsoft
Website. once he downloaded it his computer crached.

Likely that was a coincidence.

now his BIOS does not recognize his harddrive. each time he
restarts the memory count runs but then pauses for sometime,

Thats a bit odd.

but then coutinues as:

Detecting IDE drives....
Primary master: none
primary slave: none

The screen then moves normal. then the screen says:

Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Boot from ATAPI CDROM:
Disk Boot Failure, insert system disk and press enter.

I swapped the hard drive with one that has win xp, and then the OS
opens to it's desktop. i know now the harddrive controller is good.

I restarted the computer with the win xp cd, and tried going into the
repair windows option srceen to see if it can see the hard drive. the
screen showed:

Setup didnot find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

Looks like the hard drive has died. Does it actually spin up ?

My brother haven't backup any of his inportant files in over a month, and
doesnot want to lose them. is it possible to bring back this hard drive alive .

Depends on whether it spins up or not. No software will get anything back
if it wont. A logic card swap to an identical drive may or may not work.

You can also use a cost effective recovery operation like www.retrodata.co.uk

 

[Senex]

richie2k5 rattled this off his keyboard on 8/12/2006 :

my brother tried downloading an upgrade for his Norton Security
software on his win xp, which has expired. but was then told to
install something thats missing which linked him to the Microsoft
Website. once he downloaded it his computer crached. now his BIOS
does not recognize his harddrive. each time he restarts the memory
count runs but then pauses for sometime, but then coutinues as:

Detecting IDE drives....
Primary master: none
primary slave: none

The screen then moves normal. then the screen says:

Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Disk Boot Failure,
insert system disk and press enter.

I swapped the hard drive with one that has win xp, and then the OS
opens to it's desktop. i know now the harddrive controller is good.

I restarted the computer with the win xp cd, and tried going into the
repair windows option srceen to see if it can see the hard drive. the
screen showed:

Setup didnot find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

My brother haven't backup any of his inportant files in over a month,
and doesnot want to lose them. is it possible to bring back this hard
drive alive .

thanx for any help in advance.

I can't help regarding loss of data *but*, I had exactly the same
problem when upgrading Norton Security software. In my case, I got a
copy of the HDD manufacturer's utilities and burned a self booting copy
to a CD on a friends machine. I then used the CD on my machine. It
found my drive without any trouble, formatted it and I then proceeded
with a clean install of the OS (Win XP).

Haven't had any problems since. Needless to say, I did *not* reinstall
Norton. I now use the free version of AVG.

Coincidental?? I don't think so.

 

[Senex]

Senex rattled this off his keyboard on 8/12/2006 :

richie2k5 rattled this off his keyboard on 8/12/2006 :

I can't help regarding loss of data *but*, I had exactly the same problem
when upgrading Norton Security software. In my case, I got a copy of the HDD
manufacturer's utilities and burned a self booting copy to a CD on a friends
machine. I then used the CD on my machine. It found my drive without any
trouble, formatted it and I then proceeded with a clean install of the OS
(Win XP).

Haven't had any problems since. Needless to say, I did *not* reinstall
Norton. I now use the free version of AVG.

Coincidental?? I don't think so.

Oh, by the way, I never save important files to the HDD. I use Nero
InCD which allows me to use a CD the same as I would a HDD. That is
where everything of importance goes. Beats having to remember to do a
backup from time to time. ;o)

 

[Jan Alter]

Senex rattled this off his keyboard on 8/12/2006 :

Oh, by the way, I never save important files to the HDD. I use Nero InCD
which allows me to use a CD the same as I would a HDD. That is where
everything of importance goes. Beats having to remember to do a backup
from time to time. ;o)

Three things to try:

Switch ATAPI controllers. Just hook up the hdd to the second IDE channel
and give it a shot. Also switch cables if that doesn't work.
If you can't get the drive recognized by the bios I think you've got a drive
that's ready for burial. A couple of times I've been able to resurrect
drives by smacking them sharply on a pile of magazines. Additionally, before
doing that you should try the freezer trick by putting the drive in a
plastic bag with air expelled and into the freezer for an hour. Take it out
and hook it up. I've heard many folks who were happily surprised.

 

[John Doe]

Oh, by the way, I never save important files to the HDD. I use
Nero InCD which allows me to use a CD the same as I would a HDD.
That is where everything of importance goes. Beats having to
remember to do a backup from time to time. ;o)

You should regularly/occasionally make a copy of the CD. Hard drive
failure is probably the main reason, but having a duplicate is
another reason to have files on removable media. Something could
happen to the physical CD or something could go wrong with the
writing process.

Good luck.