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my BIOS detect the HDD but Windows Doesn't

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - my BIOS detect the HDD but Windows Doesn't

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Hi everyone, firts i must apologize cuz´my english really sucks and maybe you cant understand me ....Anyway this is the situation, i always have my pc with 2 Western digital hard drives 80G (Master HDD) and 30G(Slave), everything was fine until one day y turn on my pc and i see that the BIOS detect my slave HDD normaly but when windows starts i cant see the slave hard drive like it wasnt connected to the pc, i really dunno why cuz in bios i can detect the slave hard drive without any problems but in windows i cant see it, i really hope that you could help me cuz i have really important info in that HDD ill`like to recover it.
btw my mobo model is a MSN PM8PM-V in case that is needed

i hope that you could understant this...
Thanxs.

Message edited by DgTL on 11-12-2007 at 05:34:09 PM

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If you open the Disk Management Console in Windows (Start >> Run... >> diskmgmt.msc) is the drive there? If the drive is listed there, or in the Device Manager (Start >> Run... >> devmgmt.msc) then this is most likely a soft or logical failure rather than a physical failure of the drive.

Problems that I have seen that do this:
-Damaged or lost MFT (sometimes fixable)
-Damaged or lost partition table (sometimes fixable)
-Physically damaged disk areas (recovery possible, but difficult; replacement needed)
-Full on mechanical failure of the drive (logic circuits work, causing the system to 'see' the drive at boot, but leaving it inaccessible; replacement needed).

In cases of hard or physical failure, if you absolutely need whatever was on the disk your best bet is a data recovery lab. The downside is that most will charge you a $100 diagnostic fee, and recovery fees somewhere north of $1,000.

Message edited by AnorianDeson on 11-12-2007 at 08:10:30 PM

Reply to AnorianDeson

all of the above are accurate.. would like to add one more I have seen fairly often.

if you have Goback installed, then have a problem with it, and try to remove it, it can leave the drive in a 'unreadable' state, due to not setting the partition type properly. In these cases, drive is seen in BIOS, seen in computer management (drive is there, size is know, but no drive letter assigned). the solution is to get the partition type reset properly, and we wont go into that unless needed.

Reply to michiganteddybear

thanks for your answers guys, i run the devmgmt.msc and the diskmgmt.msc and the drive isnt there, i guess that i just gonna buy a new one . Thanks anyway

Reply to DgTL

You can try a usb HD enclosure (set the jumpers to master) and see if you can recover your data that way. I've seen stranger things than a failing HD sometimes work in different enviroments

Reply to bc4

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