HD failure

[Giuseppe]

Hi everybody.

Gotta have a serious problem.
Everytime I boot my pc, it freezes after the first booting operations as it
finds NO hard disk. Up to a few days ago everything was ok.
In the booting setup I was used to have the HDD employed, now it says NONE.
Connectors are actually ok, nothing changed.
When I try to reboot the system from my CD drive, using microsoft windows
disk, I am able to use the old Dos black screen and can navigate in my HDD.
So, the Dos is able to see my HDD, but windows is unable.

Is there any hope to have the system work back?

Joe, Roma, Italia

 

[paulmd]

Hi everybody.

Gotta have a serious problem.
Everytime I boot my pc, it freezes after the first booting operations as it
finds NO hard disk. Up to a few days ago everything was ok.
In the booting setup I was used to have the HDD employed, now it says NONE.
Connectors are actually ok, nothing changed.
When I try to reboot the system from my CD drive, using microsoft windows
disk, I am able to use the old Dos black screen and can navigate in my HDD.
So, the Dos is able to see my HDD, but windows is unable.

Is there any hope to have the system work back?

If you are speaking of data recovery: Yes, it seems the drive is intact
enough to be done by most small shops. Also: you could do it yourself
if you have a spare machine handy.

The hard drive can always be replaced, if it is bad.

Before you give up on the drive, go to the bios setup screen, and make
sure the drive is set to auto detect.

 

[Shep©]

Hi everybody.

Gotta have a serious problem.
Everytime I boot my pc, it freezes after the first booting operations as it
finds NO hard disk. Up to a few days ago everything was ok.
In the booting setup I was used to have the HDD employed, now it says NONE.
Connectors are actually ok, nothing changed.
When I try to reboot the system from my CD drive, using microsoft windows
disk, I am able to use the old Dos black screen and can navigate in my HDD.
So, the Dos is able to see my HDD, but windows is unable.

Is there any hope to have the system work back?

Joe, Roma, Italia

1st cheap option is to replace the Mother board CMOS battery.If it's
failed it will lose the BIOS settings and auto-detection etc.

HTH

 

[Rod Speed]

1st cheap option is to replace the Mother board CMOS battery.
If it's failed it will lose the BIOS settings and auto-detection etc.

No it wont. It will complain about a cmos checksum error and load the
defaults and that will still see the drive if auto drive types were used.

 

[Giuseppe]

If you are speaking of data recovery: Yes, it seems the drive is intact
enough to be done by most small shops. Also: you could do it yourself
if you have a spare machine handy.

The hard drive can always be replaced, if it is bad.

Before you give up on the drive, go to the bios setup screen, and make
sure the drive is set to auto detect.

Yes, Autodetect is on.
How can I try to "do-it-myself"? Is there any software available for
data recovery?
Thank you

 

[paulmd]

Yes, Autodetect is on.
How can I try to "do-it-myself?

First thing to do is pull it from it's present machine, and plug it
into a spare. As a secondary master. (unplug any cds) See if it is
detected in the new machine. If YES, then things are looking good. If
no.... that would be a good time to consider professional data
recovery.

If you want to proceed with a non-detected drive. Then there are 2 ways
to go: you can try to see if special software will detect the drive, or
you can find an absolutely identical drive, and swap out the drive
logic board. Consider professional help one more time before jumping.

This is the absolute limit of home brew data recovery. More advanced
techniques require disassembling the drive in a clean room. Which is a
major capital investment.

Is there any software available for

data recovery?

There is.