I've looked at a few topics on this already and I think I know the answer but I'd like to know more.
I have a Windows 7 desktop PC, ASUS motherboard with UEFI, have had it for maybe 3 years now. Yesterday evening I went to boot it up and I get something to the effect of:
Realtek PCIe Family Controller etc...
Media Test Failure, Check Cable
Exiting PXE ROM
From what I've looked up I think my HDD is borked. It's a WD Blue 1TB SATA 64MB Cache WD10EZEX and it's as old as the PC as I got it at the same time as the rest of the PC parts (first real build) My ASUS BIOS can see the drive.
I hooked it up to another PC at work. The BIOS sees it there too. I used Disk Management to see if I could view any files on it for salvaging and it shows 931 GB capacity and 931 GB free. It's also marked as primary partition along with the main C: drive of the work PC.
There wasn't anything on the drive that isn't recoverable (Mainly used for gaming on Steam so it just means hours/days of downloading) but is the whole drive dead? If it thinks it's empty could I attempt to reformat it and reinstall Win 7 on it again or would it be easier/safer to get a new one?
Basically is it possible there's something left on the drive worth saving or is the whole drive worth saving for storage purposes? Any answers are appreciated and I apologize for slow responses. With my PC down I'm limited to work PCs and iPad usage.
I have a Windows 7 desktop PC, ASUS motherboard with UEFI, have had it for maybe 3 years now. Yesterday evening I went to boot it up and I get something to the effect of:
Realtek PCIe Family Controller etc...
Media Test Failure, Check Cable
Exiting PXE ROM
From what I've looked up I think my HDD is borked. It's a WD Blue 1TB SATA 64MB Cache WD10EZEX and it's as old as the PC as I got it at the same time as the rest of the PC parts (first real build) My ASUS BIOS can see the drive.
I hooked it up to another PC at work. The BIOS sees it there too. I used Disk Management to see if I could view any files on it for salvaging and it shows 931 GB capacity and 931 GB free. It's also marked as primary partition along with the main C: drive of the work PC.
There wasn't anything on the drive that isn't recoverable (Mainly used for gaming on Steam so it just means hours/days of downloading) but is the whole drive dead? If it thinks it's empty could I attempt to reformat it and reinstall Win 7 on it again or would it be easier/safer to get a new one?
Basically is it possible there's something left on the drive worth saving or is the whole drive worth saving for storage purposes? Any answers are appreciated and I apologize for slow responses. With my PC down I'm limited to work PCs and iPad usage.