Computer Won't Detect Hard Drive

[xl7zandy]

This is super frustrating. I can't figure out why my drive isn't being detected. I know the board is good because I tried it out on a similar hard drive and that drive detected just fine. The drive spins too. I am running windows XP on a 3-year-old HP desktop.

 

[tokencode]

Try the drive on another computer and see if it is detected, if not it could be a bad PCB on the drive. You can try finding an identical drive, swap PCBs and firmware chips and see if that works. If it still spins up its mechanically good, most likely the PCB.

 

[sminlal]

Is this a new drive? If so, it probably just needs to be partitioned and formatted:

Click "Start" --> right-click "Computer" and select "Manage".

Click "Disk Management" in the left pane.

Scroll down to the BOTTOM of the MIDDLE pane.

You should see your new disk there with a label such as "Disk 1" or "Disk 2", etc. Right-click on the label in order to create a new volume (which partitions the drive) and then again to format it.

Once it's formatted Windows will assign the next available drive letter to it and then it will appear in Windows Explorer.

 

[xl7zandy]

Not detected on another computer, but I already bought a similar hard drive and I have a working board.

 

[xl7zandy]

This drive is not detected in disk management or in the BIOS.

 

[xl7zandy]

The other drive gets detected no matter which board it has on it. I have looked at the contact points on the drive itself and they don't seem to be damaged, but I don't know how I can tell.

 

[tokencode]

If its not working on either computer and no detected by the BIOS and spins up, I think my original diagnosis is correct, probably a bad PCB.

 

[xl7zandy]

I replaced the PCB and I even connected the old PCB to the new drive. The new drive is detected with the old PCB attached to it. I can't get any computer to detect the old drive no matter which PCB is attached to it.

 

[sminlal]

You can't swap PCBs on a lot of modern drives because they often have flash memory that contains calibration parameters specific to the platters inside the drive.

 

[fzabkar]

What is the model number?

 

[xl7zandy]

Model: ST350080AS

 

[fzabkar]

If you mean "ST3500820AS", then be aware that certain 7200.11 firmware is affected by the BSY bug which produces the symptoms you describe.

See this thread:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&message.id=18467#M18467

See the following bulletin for an explanation of the BSY bug.

Urgent Field Update. Topic: Drive Hang after Power Cycle:
http://www.expreview.com/img/topic/seagate_firmware/1-16_KB11_Barracuda_Field_Update.pdf

Seagate were at one time offering free data recovery services for this issue.

 

[Becky_j47]

Is this a new drive? If so, it probably just needs to be partitioned and formatted:

Click "Start" --> right-click "Computer" and select "Manage".

Click "Disk Management" in the left pane.

Scroll down to the BOTTOM of the MIDDLE pane.

You should see your new disk there with a label such as "Disk 1" or "Disk 2", etc. Right-click on the label in order to create a new volume (which partitions the drive) and then again to format it.

Once it's formatted Windows will assign the next available drive letter to it and then it will appear in Windows Explorer.

Thank you so much!! Life saver!