Major hard drive problem!

Computer Forum Storage Devices
1

Alright, here’s the deal. I have a Seagate 80gb hard drive set up as my secondary that i store all my files on (docs, music, downloads), this way I can keep all my programs and windows on the primary drive. Anyway, yesterday, my bios gave me a message saying that the “SMART command failed”, so I pressed F1 to continue, and now I can’t see my drive anymore. I downloaded the SeaTools and ran it, and it recognized the drive. The BIOS can also correctly identify the drive (ST380021A), but Windows cannot.

When I ran the SeaTools, the drive itself passed all tests (including SMART, which baffled me), but the partition showed up as an empty FAT16 partition (instead of the NTFS containing my files).

I’ve tried several data recovery softwares, but none seem to be able to run before booting, except TestDisk, but I was only able to run that in WinPE, and it only saw the first drive.

Any ideas?
Some of this data is EXTREMELY important, I’ve already emailed Seagate. I hope I don’t need to get this professionally done..

Thanks!

2

SMART is something to do with your BIOS. I would try resetting CMOS or just remov the little battery. Then put the battery back in, and boot up.

3

I’ve never encountered anything quite like what you’re going through. However, the first thing I’d try would be to make sure that Windows is making the drive visible to users. Just because Windows can see a drive does not mean that it will let you see that drive.

Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Computer Management* → Storage Devices*

  • I don’t run Windows, so sorry if the names are a bit off!

The next thing I’d do would be to boot to another operating system, like Knoppix, and see if you can get to your info from there. If so, you could always transfer it to another HDD or burn it to CD/DVD.

-AT

4

Power up your system and enter BIOS setup. Disable 'S.M.A.R.T.

If your system will actually detect the drive and boot into Windows, immediately copy all your important data file over to the other hard drive, and then replace the drive!

S.M.A.R.T. stands for “Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology” and the report generated is an indication of impending drive failure.

If this does not work, i would suggest taking your hard drive and putting it into another working computer (as a second hard drive- “slave” drive) then make a backup of all important data on the working hard drive, or CDROM or USB stick e.t.c or across network, or web server.

I would highly suggest that if you get the oppurtunity to rescue your data that you make a backup to atleast 2 different types of storage media, whether it be USB, web, network, another hard drive, dvd or cdrom.

If this doesn’t work, post back and we’ll go through a recovery process.

5

I’ve never encountered anything quite like what you’re going through. However, the first thing I’d try would be to make sure that Windows is making the drive visible to users. Just because Windows can see a drive does not mean that it will let you see that drive.

Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Computer Management* → Storage Devices*

  • I don’t run Windows, so sorry if the names are a bit off!

The next thing I’d do would be to boot to another operating system, like Knoppix, and see if you can get to your info from there. If so, you could always transfer it to another HDD or burn it to CD/DVD.

-AT

The drive does not appear in the storage devices. I know when I tried to install slackware, I got an error on the drive saying the DMA expired, and there was some other errors.

Power up your system and enter BIOS setup. Disable 'S.M.A.R.T.

If your system will actually detect the drive and boot into Windows, immediately copy all your important data file over to the other hard drive, and then replace the drive!

S.M.A.R.T. stands for “Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology” and the report generated is an indication of impending drive failure.

If this does not work, i would suggest taking your hard drive and putting it into another working computer (as a second hard drive- “slave” drive) then make a backup of all important data on the working hard drive, or CDROM or USB stick e.t.c or across network, or web server.

I would highly suggest that if you get the oppurtunity to rescue your data that you make a backup to atleast 2 different types of storage media, whether it be USB, web, network, another hard drive, dvd or cdrom.

If this doesn’t work, post back and we’ll go through a recovery process.

The drive was originally a slave, and when its setup as a slave again (both using the cable select and slave settings on the jumper), Windows doesnt see it.

Now, this may sound silly, but what if, what if I reformat the bad drive, becuase if its something as simple as a bad partition table, then I could use something like r-studio to recover. But what are the chances of this being successful?

6

Using any hard drive recovery program is always worth a try, if the drive is damaged don’t get your hopes up on recovering all information, you’d only be able to recover certain random parts. But it’s always well worth a try.

As for reformatting then recovering, this will not work, if you format the drive you are wiping it clean. The only thing that ever stays on a hard drive is the chip inside the hard drive, this is the only thing that can tell you things that have been on it e.t.c, however you would need sophistacted state of the art data recovery equipment for that.

If the files are that important you can usually find places locally or nationally that have this type of equipment and can recover ALOT more data than you would ever believe is possible and most of the time they are at reasonable cost.

7

There is a chance that you could format the drive and then use a recover tool. But first i would take out the drive and connect it into another PC and try to recover your files from there. If fails then you can try to format and and use some recovery tool for your data. (That is if your drive is still working)

8

Have you tried booting up in safe mode, or turning DMA off?