Save my HDD!!!

[themurphioso]

Hey guys, I really hope someone can help me out with this problem,


Yesterday my computer was running beautifully. I shut down to go to bed, and rebooted this morning. The flipping thing wouldn't boot. I have 2 Maxtor 1TB SATA HDD's, one used primarily for booting, and the other for data storage. I went into the BIOS to check the state of play, and my boot HDD is not being recognised. I thought it might be that the SATA cable may have died on me, so tried swapping the cables over. Again, the boot drive was not recognised.

I have SMART monitoring enabled, and would have thought I'd have been notified in advance should the HDD be about to fail, as it has done in the past, so I'm really stumped. It's under warranty, so I can get it changed should it be faulty, but I was hoping someone may have a suggestion of how to either resolve my problem or confirm that the HDD is busted, without having to send it off for about 2 months worth of 'testing' first.

I've probably not given you nearly enough info about my rig, for which I apologise (I'm a noob when it comes to tech forums), so let me know what you need and I'll happily oblige.

Thanks in advance to anyone with the time and knowhow to help me out, it's really very much appreciated.

The Murphioso

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Words of wisdom from Norton850:

Wrong jumper settings
Bad Cable
[]
Bad Power Connector
Cmos not reset correctly
Dead HD
Bad MoBo

I guess that you are down to the last four.

One other option is to download Damn Small Linux and copy the ISO to a CD, boot with it and see if it finds your hard drive.

 

[themurphioso]

Thanks for your reply, Mike.

My power cable is split, and powers both HDDs - the split is at the point of connecting to the failing HDD, while the extension reaches the working HDD, so I don't believe that is the issue. As well, I've tried the HDDs in all of the different SATA connections on the MoBo, with the same result each time, so I don't believe that to be the issue either. I'll try to reset the Cmos, other than that I fear the HDD is dead.

My concern is that there has not been a sniff of a problem until now, and then all of a sudden - nothing. Would the HDD be likely to die so instantaneously, without warning?

One more thing, and I don't know if this matters, the last time the computer successfully booted it restarted itself to complete a microsoft update. Not sure if that makes a difference, but thought it was worth mentioning.

Thanks

 

[MikeJRamsey]

The acid test is to boot using DSL (as suggested) or to hook the failing HDD up to a second system. If the drive fails the acid test then it is dead. If the drive passes the acid test then other things, like software updates, become relevant.

 

[themurphioso]

Right, DSL it is. Thanks for your help, Mike. Much obliged.