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Internal hard drive disappeared ........

Graham1958

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 11:44AM

Hi, my internal WD Sata hard drive is no longer accessible in my desktop pc. I believe it became a little noisy shortly before this happened. I have swapped cables and ports with my other drive which has the OS on it, but to no avail. It is still getting power to it as it vibrates slightly when the pc is turned on.

Any help MUCH appreciated as foolishly I hadn't backed it up.

Thanks.

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lotvic

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 1:16PM

Check in the BIOS that it is recognised. Windows won't see it if BIOS can't.

A trick that worked for me when I had same prob was putting hard drive in freezer overnight (double wrapped in plastic to keep out moisture) and then following day it was accessible and I was able to copy off all data.

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 2:11PM

Can you see it in disk management?

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lotvic

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 2:23PM

disk management - if it shows there ok it may have lost it's drive letter, if so then Windows Explorer won't be able to list it so you will need to assign it a letter.

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Graham1958

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 3:05PM

Thanks for all your replies. Just got back from the local pc shop and the guy says it has had it. It's got the dreaded "click". He did suggest trying it in the freezer! There is no sign of it in disk management or anywhere else. I cannot get into bios at the moment as I have no ps2 keyboard until Amazon deliver one to me........

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 3:12PM

Freezer is last resort

Its probably damage the file system so something like Test disk can recover most of your files as long as BIOS can see the drive.

If it clicks then BIOS should see it.

You should be able to get into BIOS with a USB or wireless keyboard

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Graham1958

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Posted December 12, 2012 at 3:19PM

Thanks Fruitbat. I have not been able to get into bios with my usb keyboard for some reason. I get no response to any keyboard actions at all. I was advised to try a ps2 one so I ordered a cheapo off amazon. I will certainly follow your advise when I do get in.

Many thanks.

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