How can I format a drive that is corrupt?

[iixwh3l4nxii]

My old HDD is a very nice Seagate 500GB drive and I could really really use it.

Anyway I used a dodgey PSU and it shorted out the system, killing my Motherboard, processor and apparantly the Hard Drive, but I refused to believe this! If I use it as a boot drive (it has windows 7 installed on it atm) it goes into post, you know with the "DEL: Enter setup" etc. But then it freezes.

Even if I put in my actual boot drive in with it (a Hitatchi IDE 80GB drive) it automatically chooses the Seagate -_-

So yeah, how can I make it boot with my Hitatchi instead of this corrupted Seagate.


I have tried:

Plugging the IDE drive on its own, then putting the 500GB in the system with it (it chooses the 500GB as boot automatically)

Plugging in the 500GB on its own

doing manually setting the 80GB to boot before putting the 500GB in...

Oh yeah and I can't get into the bios, when the post screen comes on I can press Delete or F12 etc but all I get is a clicking noise from the computer every press, with no result.

So yeah is there anyway I can like manually set it so the 500GB is IGNORED as the boot drive so I can actually get into my computer and format it.

 

[egilbe]

sounds like you aren't changing the boot order in BIOS.

 

[4745454b]

Is the computer you can't get into the bios the same one that got fried? Can you enter the bios with no hdds present?

 

[Commonsens]

Stick it into another computer ( or while this drive is slave)and perform a low level format FULL ERASE (can be found at any hard drive manufacturer, for a Seagate: go here: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/203931en.

but that's a "ground level fix", as IF if is firmware, it will fix it; but if it is hardware, you have in fact a drive that is as good as garbage.

I will not exclude to check for "other" problems..such as a mobo having problems (""cant access bios...""), but no matter what, i will NOT trust that HDD anymore.

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

Nonononono


I got a new system, everything works, I have a 80GB IDE for boot and files but I want to get my 500GB from my OLD system working again.

My problem is I can't actually use my computer when it's plugged in, it sets itself as master and I can't go into the bios to change it to slave because it's corrupt and it freezes...

 

[4745454b]

Can you enter the bios with no hdds present?

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

Yeah I guess I could, but how would that help?

 

[4745454b]

As mentioned above you could then enter the bios and set the 80GB as the boot hdd. Then add the 500 back in and format.

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

", it sets itself as master and I can't go into the bios to change it to slave because it's corrupt and it freezes"

it's impossible, even with the 80GB set as master before installing the 500GB, the 500GB makes itself master

because of this it tries to boot windows from the 500GB

because the drive is broken, it freezes the system before I can even enter the bios to change the boot setup.

 

[Guest]

if you can boot from your CD/DVD drive and can burn a copy, trey this to format the HD
Ultimate Boot CD

if you can't burn it, you may try booting with a windows CD and formating the drive as when you do an installation.

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

That's a brilliant idea, thank you I'll try that now.

 

[4745454b]

You keep saying master, but thats not the way sata works. If you tell the bios to boot from IDE drive then it *shouldn't* boot from SATA. It should think hdd boot = 80GB IDE drive.

The problem with the UBCD idea is didn't you say anytime the 500GB is in your computer it won't boot? So I don't see how you can run it.

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

Yeah that's what I just thought.

I don't think the bios is that good, the best I can do is go to advanced settings and set the HDS12938 w/e (the Hitatchi 80GB IDE) as boot, but as soon as I put the 500GB in, it sets iself as boot (it seems)

 

[egilbe]

Put it in, check and see what the boot order is afterwards. I bet it's defaulting to the last drive you put in.

 

[iixwh3l4nxii]

i've tried booting with the 500GB alone and then adding the IDE drive with it, so If what you say is true it would of worked, but it didn't =/

 

[Guest]

got a bit of a crazy idea:

make the sata port AHCI mode in the BIOS and enable "hot swappable" w/o the stata drive connected.
boot into windows and attach the drive. now here is where it might get dodgy; windows will install the drivers ( i hope) and ask to restart. shutdown instead and disconnect the drive before rebooting. once back into windows with the AHCI drivers installed you ought to be able to connect it.

i just remembered this worked for someone else but they had both drives (boot and storage) as sata so i am not sure if windows plays nice with one drive on a pata ide cable and the other on a sata in ahci mode.