HD is spinning but not showing up in BIOS nor desktop

[hajime]

Hello. I was using Vista Business 32-bit and the system suddenly became very slow and unstable. I tried to reboot from Windows and the system halted. So, I pressed the power button to shut down the PC. When I turned it on again, the original HD disappeared from the boot drive list (I had two internal drives. One with Vista 32-bit installed and the other with 64-bit installed. Usually I could see both drives from the boot drive menu). I checked the BIOS and it did not detect this drive. Diagnostic test also could not detect the drive. Then, I booted into 64-bit Vista to see if the drive with problem appeared. No hope.

I took out the HD from the PC. Then, through a SATA-USB adaptor, I connected it to another PC. When I plugged the drive into the USB port, Vista recognized that a new USB drive was plugged in. However, there was no drive icon under My Computer nor the desktop. I tried it several times but got the same result.

As the drive is spinning, is there any way to retrieve the data before I send the HD to HP for an exchange? Anybody knows why the drive suddenly behaves strangly? Thanks.

 

[r_manic]

What hard disk is this in particular? What does it say on the drive labeling itself? Any potential fix to your problem depends on what hard disk you're using.

 

[hajime]

It is a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB, 7200rpm, 3GB/s SATA drive.

 

[ram1009]

You'll probably have to decide what your data is worth to you. The last time I had data retrieved I was told that any drive that is spinning can have the data retrieved but it isn't cheap.

 

[hajime]

What hard disk is this in particular? What does it say on the drive labeling itself? Any potential fix to your problem depends on what hard disk you're using.

It is a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB. Know any potential fix?

 

[hajime]

As I have two Hitachi drives of the same type, I put the circuit board (mounted on the surface of a working hard drive) to the failed drive. I tried to connect the drive via USB. Again, Windows recognized a drive of USB type has been plugged in. However, drive icon did not show up. Next, I tried to boot the drive as the only hard drive in the PC. The PC halted without booting into Windows. Pressing the function key to the bios did not allow me to go to the bios. The system halted with the welcome to HP screen which usually shows up when I turn on the machine. This may indicate that there are problems inside the hard drive. Does that mean the chance of recovering the data is very low?