URGENT! Audio hard drive failure

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Richardson
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Mike Richardson

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Hi. Here's my problem.

I have 2 hard drives. Drive C = operating system & programs, etc. it's a 4.2gig maxtor drive. Drive D = 30 gig western digital drive for audio. Drive E = cd-rw.

As of thismorning, my bios detects drive D (the 30 gigger) but Windows will not recognize the drive; it will not assign a letter to it, making my cd-rw drive D - formely drive E.

The hard drive has been installed in another computer and the same problem occurs. The other computer detects it but could not access the drive.

Last night everything was working perfectly and today it has shat itself.

There is 20 gig worth of vital audio information on the 30 gig drive. How can I get it back? The hard drive is there and is being recognized by the bios but i can not access it. I have not re-formatted it yet, despite the fact that's what people reccomend that I do.

Any suggestions, please get back to me ASAP.

Would the hard drive be worn out from constantly reading/writing large amounts of digital audio?
:confused: :(

Please help!!
 
Do NOT reformat it. Please. If it is being recognized by the bios, it is probably not a physical failure.

Send me a PM. I can probably help you out. QUick. And do NOT reformat it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Later,
C
 
yep

yep i did pm u but i'm new to this so i dont know if it worked
 
I've seen that problem before... It is technically recoverable... but I fear the worst. I hope Clarke there will help you (and hopefully not the national lampoon way), cause I know that if it happened to me, I'd just cut my losses and...

oh wait, it windows doesnt assign it a letter? hmm, there may be hope for you yet... what ver of windows?
 
windows 98

same thing happens if i boot into ms-dos mode. drive D = cdrom, not the 30 gig one like it should be... :mad:
 
Mike, If I understand your thread correctly your smaller boot drive has yaked, but larger audio drive is seen.

Your system files being on the dead drive, it's obvious why it wont boot. But there is no reason you should have to do anything to the larger drive. Hopefully you have a Win98 Startup disk (floppy) somewhere. If you its no big deal. Buy a new hard drive to replace the dead one, boot with your startup and format it. Then copy the Win98 fol;der from a Win98 CD to your new blank C: drive and run setup from there. You data drive should remain undisturbed by all this.
 
Thanks for the reply RWhite, what you said makes sense - but all the system files are on drive C. drive C is fine. Drive D is the one with the audio on it. The computer boots up fine and I can access everything on drive C and the cdrom (formely drive E, now D).

I'm sure drive C is fine because drive D has been tested in another computer and the same problem occured. The OS will not assign a letter to the hard drive, which is usually drive D. Maybe it doesn't recognize the partition or something..... because 'fdisk' can't access it either.
 
Did you try to open the case to see if everything was still attached to the hard drive? Power, data cable, jumper settings? I had a problem, not exactly like yours but somewhat close, where we got our PC back from repairs and when it booted it up the computer saw our floppy drive but couldn't write anything to it. I thought for sure I'd have to take it in again. But I first assumed the obvious: check to make sure it's all connected. Sure enough the power supply was not connected to it. Reboot and fine. Now it's possible that that isn't your problem but it's good to double check to make sure. Sometimes it can be the simple things :) , good luck.
 
Without trying to sound too much like a smartass, can you say backup?

I learned that lesson the hard way, when one of my harddrives went bellyup. I now backup everything that is important and anything that would take lots of time to recreate. The thing about loosing recordings is you will never recreate exactly what you had lost.

Mike I hope you're able to recover that harddrive man!

Good luck,

scodu
 
Does 'fdisk' see the drive?

If you dont know how to use this (potentially dangerous) program, go into the dos prompt and type Fdisk. (hint, stay away from all the delete options)

from there, find out if there are still partitions on that drive.
 
I might help...

Do you know that application?

http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/

It did some miracle for me, because I have a rack disk (not sure of the expression in english) that I transport from one computer to another, and, sometime, for no reason, NT just blink my drive and do the same problem that you describ.

When I use that application, I can see all my drive, even those that I do not see in Explorer.

There a "Trial Version"

Good Luck

Pierre, Montréal, Canada
 
Yea, partition magic can 'hide' a drive. It scared me a little when this happened. I don't know if there's a setting in W98 that makes drives hidden as well, but it sounds like a switch somewhere is making it invisible. I DO believe you have not lost any data though. Sorry I can't really help - unless you have partition magic and can UNhide the D:
 
Check the IDE cable if you used the same cable in both comps with that drive. Try another IDE cable.
 
Thanks for all the replies :)

*All the cables are in fine.

*I've tried the hard drive as a secondary slave instead of a primary slave. Still nothing.

*FDISK recognizes that there is something there, but there is no drive letter assigned to the disk. It says there is a 28685 megabyte drive there, but that's it. C: is there but it won't label the other one as D:

I'll give partition magic a go. Thanks again.
 
Ok looks like your FAT is fucked up. Had the same thing happen to me for no obvious reason. I used a program lostandfound and got 90% of my stuff back. But when u use a program like that you have to have another HDD where you can copy the recoverd files.

Keijo
 
MIke,

Before you do anything, go to www.wdc.com, and download DataLifeGuard tools from Western digital.

Run the diagnostic module, and run the 'extended' test. There is a real good chance it can repair the damaged partition or FAT table. At least it will tell you what is wrong, in the form of an error code (4 digits - all 0's means no errors)

Their tool is very powerful, and designed for that drive.

When you ran Fdisk, and it saw the drive, did it say 'non-dos' partition, or did it see a partition at all?

Good luck.

Tom
 
Well, there were some good suggestions to try. However based on your more recent postings I think I can quote Dr. McCoy here -

"Its dead, Jim".
 
I would not go that far...if it is there physically, he has decent odds. If it is a MBR or BPB as I suspect, he has REALLY good odds.

But what do I know, I only do data recovery for a living... :)

Later,
C
 
Yeah, after what I've read I'm pretty sure it's a screwed up MBR.

But..... what should I use to fix this? I have some program called "DIY Data Recovery Kit" or something and it comes with a program to repair damanged MBRs I think. However this wants me to make a boot disk and boot from that....... my floppy disk drive is stuffed and can't be used. And the only other floppy drive around here isn't working either. Can I fix it without having to go out and buy another floppy drive?

Thanks for all the replies so far people :) It's appreciated.
 
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