HD suddenly not seen in BIOS

[wheelthrown]

My Samsug 320 G SATA HD is about 6 months old. Running Vista everything fine. Then two days ago editing some pictures in Photoshop and Vista hangs. Not extreamly unusual, has happened 3-4 times and usually from updates. I try to reboot and it comes up "no boot device found". So I go into Bios and Drive is not showing up. I swithed SATA cable with DVD, to elimnate that as problem and DVD still shows but not HD.

If I envoke boot menu it says there is a device on that SATA channel but cant boot from it. I got a new drive and installed Vista everything looks great. But even on Channels 3,4 old drive shows nothing under Bios, Dos, Vista, or drive utility. But under boot menu it shows a device on that channel.

The drive makes all the right sounds starting up, no unusual clicks or beeps. The hd light from MB lights and blinks, so I'm at a loss. I called Samsung and they will cover it under warrany but all I get is a "comparable" drive. I'm concerned with just getting my work off old one. Somewhere I say someone meantion buying the same drive and switching the card on the bottom of the drive. Has anyone had sucesswith that or know of another option for me? thanks -J

email removed thnx-although ive done it before and never had much problem

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Never ever ever post your email in any forum. There are bots that scan these forums for email addresses, phone number, and such and they use it to spam you, steal you're identity, etc.

From the sounds of it your drive is dead. You'll have to call up samsung and get an RMA for it. You might be able to do this online. Just google RMA samsung hard drive.

As for Vista locking up look into adding more RAM. I have 8gigs of RAM in my system and it is normally taking up 2.5gigs of that. SO unless you got 3 gigs of ram you may want to think about adding more to resolve the hang up issue.

Good luck!

 

[Zorg]

It does sound like a PCB failure. You may be able to get your data if you get exactly the same drive, including the firmware revision, to pull the new PCB from. If you need the data bad enough it's worth a shot. The drive should be relatively cheap. I haven't had a need to try it, but I have heard of success in the procedure.

If you try it let us know how it worked.

 

[Zorg]

As for Vista locking up look into adding more RAM. I have 8gigs of RAM in my system and it is normally taking up 2.5gigs of that. SO unless you got 3 gigs of ram you may want to think about adding more to resolve the hang up issue.

Vista has something called virtual memory, I imagine you have heard of it. His RAM isn't causing the lockups, unless it's bad too, it's more likely the failing drive.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Yep that's a good idea too! I've actually done that once before. It has to be the same exact model though.

Unfortunately with an RMA they typically want the drive first.

It does sound like a PCB failure. You may be able to get your data if you get exactly the same drive, including the firmware revision, to pull the new PCB from. If you need the data bad enough it's worth a shot. The drive should be relatively cheap. I haven't had a need to try it, but I have heard of success in the procedure.

If you try it let us know how it worked.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Vista has something called virtual memory, I imagine you have heard of it. His RAM isn't causing the lockups, unless it's bad too, it's more likely the failing drive.

Ok

pop in 512mb of RAM in your vista box and let me know how that works for you.

 

[Zorg]

Ok

pop in 512mb of RAM in your vista box and let me know how that works for you.

It will certainly run like Pigsh!t, but it will still run, albeit without AERO. Vista won't let you run AERO unless you meet the minimum 1G requirement for it.

He probably has more than 512 anyway, and if his machine ran with only 3-4 crashes, usually after updates, that simply isn't his problem anyway.

Maybe next time you should qualify your advice with "If you are foolish enough to run Vista with 512M of RAM it would run a lot better with more"

I have personally run Vista RC2 with 2G of RAM and it only used about 768M on boot.

Vista will hog all the memory that it can, due to its stupidfetch feature that loads everything into memory it thinks you might want to use. This is unloaded on an as needed basis to load the programs that you are actually using.

They did this so that the unsuspecting public wouldn't realize what a pig Vista really is.

 

[wheelthrown]

I have 4GB(2x 2mb ddr1000) ram btw but I dont think that has anything do do with Vista Crashes or the Hard Drive failure. I have yet to meet anyone who really uses Vista who hasnt had it crash at least every other month for no good reason. I think that the more non microsoft aps you use on vista this frequency increases exponentially. Forinstance Vista has never crashed when I'm using Office 2007, but using my Pinnacle 11 video editing software or Adobe photoshop/pagemaker "crash". Seems like right after one of their larger updates is when it wants to crash. Then it gets it's act together and everyhting is fine for a month or so.

But thanks. I ordered what I hope is the exact same drive. well at least same model. It's difficult to tell when I ordered because most sites display little more than the model number not where it was made and the firmware,

I already talked to dell and samsung and the drive is covered under warantee but they only warantee drive itself and not info on it. They will gladly give me another drive, does little to recover the 2000 pictures I have from my trip I just got back from costa Rica, and was working on editing to backup. I assumed that my system wasnt that old I wasnt at risk for drive crash.

I've been considereing going RAID 1 because of my recent experience! This is just crazy 6mo hd should not just up and die with no warning. I have had drives crash years ago but usually get some warnings like bad sectors or noises or something.

I looked in to paying someone to recover data and lowest quote I got is $400 and a samsung drive like the one in question is only around $60 so I am going to try the PCB swap... I will let u know how it goes! -J

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

I have two vista machines and neither of them have crashed.

One machine i've been using vista for about a year now and not a single crash. I've had to reinstall it only because i needed to upgrade to 64bit. that's about it.

maybe it's user error? heh

Good luck with the drive swap though!

 

[Zorg]

I never had a problem with Vista RC2, but that doesn't mean it's not pigsh!t.

 

[wheelthrown]

deleted

 

[wheelthrown]

Well I swapped PCB and it still isnt seen in BIOS... but it spins up doesnt click repeatedly and is detected by SATA???? I dont know... the pcb from bad drive works on NEW drive fine so I know it's the same... Any one have anymore ides? tnx -J

 

[wheelthrown]

I'm sitting here tring to twalk myself out of trying a platter swap withc will mean I loos my warranty, my new drive and probbably not work... any ideas... this sux. -J lmao

 

[wheelthrown]

SO if anyone cares... I found out that the new drive I got was a 2007.11b even though it only says 2007.11 just like old drive and according to guy a samsung the newer board is not backward compatable but because the new platters had never been formated it worked ok with old pcb witch is definately bad but works enought to be seen with new drive somehow... seems to be strange but I am going to try to get exact pcb from samsung... pray for me! -lol