Did my hard drive die?

kenkyle

August 25, 2011 2:13:52 PM

Two SATA hard drives, one with (primary) XP, the other with Windows 7. Used Paragon HD Manager program to resize the two partitions on the Windows 7 hard drive, and computer wouldn't boot up to finish the partitioning process.

Computer won't even boot up to enter SetUP/Bios/Cmos. A message says it is going to enter Setup, but it just hangs there.

Disconnected my primary XP drive (soloed the Win 7 drive): same symptoms.

Took out Win 7 HDD (Western Digital, 320 GB, Caviar Green), and replaced it with a 40 GB Western Digital, and everything started working again.

(1) When a HDD dies, can't a person still enter Setup?

(2) Was it just a coincidence that the attempt to resize the partitions happened at the same time the HDD died? The HDD is about a month old. OR did Paragon mess up the HDD and the OS and Data and HDD, for that matter, are still recoverable?

Thanks for your help.
Ken

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kenkyle

August 25, 2011 2:32:01 PM

Whoops. It's a Caviar Blue, and it was purchased off Amazon on May 31, 2011.

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Hawkeye22

Windows 7 Authority

Storage Expert

August 25, 2011 2:40:40 PM

Your drive is probably in a corrupted state. As for you not being able to get into the bios, that's odd. I'd try clearing the bios and see if that brings it back. Check your motherboard manual. There should be jumpers that need shorted to clear the bios. If you can't find that, pull the plug from the wall and remove the battery from the motherboard for 5 minutes or so. Put the battery back in, plug it in, and see if it starts up. If you can get into the bios then, you should "load optimzed defaults", and reset anything you may have changed in the past.

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kenkyle

August 25, 2011 5:36:22 PM

Thank you, Hawkeye22, for your post.

Yes, I thought not being able to get into BIOS was very odd. I was able, however, to get into BIOS when I pulled out the problem hard drive and replaced it.

So, if I'm correct, your suggested procedure would only be necessary if I reinstalled the problem drive. And then, I'm wondering what the purpose of getting into BIOS would be--would I be able to access the problem drive by loading the optimized defaults?

Ken

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ram1009

August 25, 2011 6:25:40 PM

I managed to corrupt two brand new WD black drives a short time ago by trying unsuccessfully to set up a RAID. The only way I could reformat them was to put them in an external USB enclosure and use DISK MANAGER from within XP.

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kenkyle

August 25, 2011 8:15:49 PM

To RAM1009--Now that's an idea. I was trying to figure out how I could test the problem drive to see if, in fact, it had died. Using an external enclosure would help do the trick, but I haven't a SATA, only an IDE, external drive enclosure.

I think I'll just pursue returning the problem drive to Amazon. But I sure would like to know what happened to cause the drive to quit working (for future reference--I wouldn't want to inadvertently repeat a user error).

I'm always suspicious of two things happening at the same time and my calling it a coincidence, i.e., my trying to change partition sizes and the hard drive quiting all of a sudden. I would be more inclined to think that the two occurrences are related. But in this case I haven't been able to come up with exactly how they can be related. You know?

Ken

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ram1009

August 25, 2011 8:51:20 PM

kenkyle said:

To RAM1009--Now that's an idea. I was trying to figure out how I could test the problem drive to see if, in fact, it had died. Using an external enclosure would help do the trick, but I haven't a SATA, only an IDE, external drive enclosure.

I think I'll just pursue returning the problem drive to Amazon. But I sure would like to know what happened to cause the drive to quit working (for future reference--I wouldn't want to inadvertently repeat a user error).

I'm always suspicious of two things happening at the same time and my calling it a coincidence, i.e., my trying to change partition sizes and the hard drive quiting all of a sudden. I would be more inclined to think that the two occurrences are related. But in this case I haven't been able to come up with exactly how they can be related. You know?

Ken

External USB enclosures are pretty cheap and very handy. I wouldn't be without one. WD is pretty good about accepting drives back but it will take much more time than buying a USB box.