second hard drive problem

[Guest]

I have two hard drives one 40 GB and a 500GB. When i go to open the big hard
drive, it will become non responsive and i cannot open any files in it. I
have re booted the computer and it does not change anything. I need some help

 

[Gerry]

Try running HD Tune(freeware).

Download and run it and see what it turns up.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy
to Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Also do a full surface
scan with HD Tune.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Paul]

I have two hard drives one 40 GB and a 500GB. When i go to open the big hard
drive, it will become non responsive and i cannot open any files in it. I
have re booted the computer and it does not change anything. I need some help

The drive will be made by a company like Seagate or Samsung etc. Check the
label on the drive, to figure out who makes it.

The manufacturers make available, a diagnostic you can download, to test
your disk. The diagnostic will tell you if there is something wrong with
the disk. If the diagnostic passes the disk, that would mean it is physically
OK. Leaving a screwed up file system on the disk, as the reason it is
not accessible.

And, at the very least, to do something with the data currently on the
500GB drive, you'll need a drive big enough to hold the data recovered from it.
If you know there is 100GB of data on there, buy a drive larger than that, so
you have some place to put any recovered data. There are various data recovery
utilities, that can deal with minor defects in a file system.
(The list is more than a page long in fact, but I didn't keep a copy.)

An attempt to repair the file system, could fix it, or could make the problems
worse. If the underlying disk is good, at least the disk will not be
making your problems worse. If the disk is physically in bad shape, then
trying to repair the file system would be a mistake.

The problem could be a trivial one, or could be a major one. Major problems
happen, when a hardware connection is loose somewhere, and large numbers of
sectors get corrupted. Or, if you leave a problem festering for months on end,
until the day comes that the file system is no longer accessible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_recovery

If you don't have a lot to lose, you could try one of the free programs.
But run the Seagate or Samsung or whatever diagnostic first, before using
this. If the disk is physically on its last legs, you may not get many more
opportunities to access it.

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1

Paul