Hard Drive Stopped Working...

there are several Linux distros that are designed to boot from a DVD/CD/floppy/USB and allow access to the data on a harddrive. However, if the drive is actually fried, it wont do much.

Might be worth a shot. Google "linux recovery usb image" or something simialr

If you have three drives that failed at the same time (or nearly the same time), the dead drives are a symptom of the real problem.

The very first thing (not the first thing, but the very first thing  ) I would do is see if all the drives work in another PC. If they do, you know where the problem is.

Thats For the Replies Guys!!

No, They Failed Years Apart...

Lemme Just Add...The HD SEEMS to be Working (Still Spinning Inside) If That Helps??

I've Tested Them in Several Different PC's w/Almost Every Kind of Configuration...

Nathanbarlow- I'll Check into That Linux Distros (Sounds a Bit Outta My Capabilities...)


-Steve

i just had the same problem last night.
was surfing the web fine one moment, left the desk for dinner, came back half an hour later and saw a blank screen (black).
rebooted the machine, bios posted, drives detected, but doesn't boot to windows, hangs in a same blank screen (black).

i took out the hdd, connect it to a esata docking station, connect to my laptop and try to do a disk management, but the drive is not found...

was about to give up and going to rma it, but remember the bios posting, so i plug it back into my desktop. took out my win7 setup disc and boot using the cd. windows setup could see the drive and partitions properly.

so i just formatted the c (system drive) and reinstall windows from fresh. lucky for me, all my data and backups are in the 2nd and 3rd partition.

anybody can advise why this happened? in particular, i am curious
- why the harddisk wasn't detected when i connect it to my laptop using a docking station?
- what was the failure/problem that cause it to be still detected in bios, but doesn't boot into windows?

i am still in the process of resintalling back all my stuffs, but while doing that, was hoping to see if i can find some answers to what was my harddisk problem, so i came here 

tia