HDD volume - unkown in device manager

[Martina-Ina]

Hello!

I’m helping a friend who had a computer crash. He desperately needs the files on in. I took his HDD (Western Digital Caviar 250 GB) and plugged it into my PC internally at an IDE slot. Regardless of how I set the jumper on it my PC would not load the OS from MY drive. However I could see the WD HDD had been detected and identified in BIOS. I tried starting my PC in safe mode, but it got stuck when loading MUP.sys – indicating HDD problems. So I took the WD HDD and connected it with an external HDD adapter kit, so it is now plugged in externally via USB with external power adapter. My PC starts fine again. The external WD HDD is detected and displayed in the device manager, but nowhere else, not in system management or disk management, my computer etc. When looking at it closer in the device manager, under the Volume tab, it is not recognized.
Has anyone heard of this problem? Is the disk just so damaged that it needs to be restored professionally? It can communicate enough to be detected and recognized as a Western Digital by my PC, but it ends there. Could this have something to do with a broken MBR?

Please advice me on how to recover the data!

Tanx
Martina

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Yes, it sounds like the controller in the hard drive is fried.

If you REALLY need the data it is time for the (expensive) professionals.

 

[Martina-Ina]

Thanks for your reply, if the controller card on the HDD is failing then wy does it even get recognized by the PC? A controller card can be switched I have done that once before, and I will do that before handing it over to expensive experts. I was just soooo hoping there may be some software malfunction that would be easier to fix.

Grrr!

 

[fzabkar]

As I asked in the other thread, what capacity and model number is reported by BIOS?

For example, if the model number is "ROM MODEL x", or if the capacity is 0 LBAs, then the drive has a physical problem, not logical.

 

[Martina-Ina]

Tanx for your replies.

The disk was handed over to a recovery company. They said the reading heads inside were broken. Not much I could do. They fixed it for 10.000 swedish crowns (1500$).