Toshiba hard drive problem out of dell laptop

[robrpb]

I am trying to help a friend out. They have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop that won't boot up. It says no bootable hard drive. I took the Toshiba hard drive model MK3018GAS out and connected it to my desktop computer to retrieve some of the files on it. It is set up as cable select and when I boot up the computer the BIOS recognizes both drives, but when the blue Windows screen appears during the boot process it goes no further. The hard drive light blinks slow and steady and the computer remains on the blue screen that says Windows XP. I tried booting it in safe mode, but even their it will not complete the boot, even if I want to boot and go to DOS. I have run out of ideas to access this hard drive. The drive is not making any noise as if it has crashed. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Rob

[kev7555]

Can you jumper the drive as slave instead of cable select?

This should allow you to explore the drive through the operating system on the boot drive.

-Kev

[robrpb]

Kev,

I will give it a try. I do have a question though. If the drive is set on cable select and the BIOS recognizes the drive after reconizing the primary drive wouldn't that do the same thing? Thanks.

Rob

[glc]

The drive is damaged to a point where it's preventing the boot process from completing. Try putting the drive in a USB housing or adapter and plugging it in after you are in Windows. If that doesn't work, you are out of free options. I would then hook it up as a standalone drive and try to boot it with Spinrite.

[robrpb]

I have found out that I wasn't waiting long enough for Windows to boot up. It takes about 5 plus minutes to boot up. I am running Windows XP Home. When I click on My Computer or Explore the drive is not listed there. When I go into Device Manager the drive is listed along with my primary drive. When I click on the Toshiba drive it says Device Working properly and it is in Location 1. How can I access this drive to save some of the files? Thanks.

Rob

[robrpb]

Thnks glc. I was writing my post and did not see yours.

[glc]

Does the drive show up in Disk Management?

[robrpb]

The drive does not show up in Disk Management. Disk Management ran very slow before posting the results.

[glc]

Not looking good at all. I doubt you will be able to do any data recovery without paying through the nose.

[robrpb]

Will Spinrite work or is the drive dead?

[glc]

I don't know - it MIGHT - but do you have it or are willing to spend $89 to get it?

[robrpb]

I don't currently have it. I have to ask my friend if she is willing to purchase it. From talking with her yesterday it didn't sound like she wanted to spend much on it, but she didn't mention a price. I know she has pictures of her baby for the first three months on the drive, but I don't know what else. glc, do you think it is worth a try? Thanks.

Rob

[glc]

I'd hate for you to spend the $89 and have it not recognize the drive. It is cheaper than sending the drive off though. Maybe you could try PC Inspector first and see if it can see the drive.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

[robrpb]

If PC Inspector can see the drive, does that mean that Spinrite will work? Also, If the BIOS detectects the hard drive, but Disk Management doesn't list it, would it be a hardware or software issue or both? glc, I really appreciate your time and insight. Thank you.

Rob

[robrpb]

I ran PC Inspector File Recovery with no success. Under the Physical Drive Tab it lists the Toshiba drive as disk #2, but I can't do anything with it. When it was searching for the drives it had an error while looking for it. It stated error #117, NT_read error drv:129 LBA:0 blocks:1. Would Spinrite be able to do anything with this drive?

[glc]

Oh man - I hate to say yes. There is a good chance but I just don't know.

Try one more thing - download the free trial of Ontrack Easy Recovery and see if it can make some sense of the drive. If it can, then consider buying it to do the job. You can get Lite for $89 which will recover 25 files per session or pay $199 for the full program to recover them all at once. If Easy Recovery can't make any sense out of the drive, then I doubt Spinrite will - but you never know, Spinrite can do some pretty amazing things.

[robrpb]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[robrpb]

I tried Ontrack Easy Recovery with no success. It identified the drive, but not any data or anything else. What do you think the chances of Spinrite recovering any data are?

[glc]

You are really putting me on the spot here. I have Spinrite, so of course I'd try it - but I don't know if I'd pay $89 for the unknown. There is no free trial.

Can you justify the purchase for something you can probably use later if you do much work on computers? Will your friend help you with the purchase price?

I wish I could be more definite, but I just don't know.

[robrpb]

I work on computers for friends, so I may use Spinrite in the future. I will talk to my friend and see if she wants to help with the cost. This has been a learning experience for me. Thanks again for your time and help.

Rob

[robrpb]

glc, I purchased Spinrite. I created a bootable with it and booted to it. I selected option 2 for data recovery and then select drives and partitions. The info displayed was

Drive 0 Primary / Master
Part 1 NTFS os OS/2 HPFS
-Gap- unpartitioned space

Drive 1 Primary / Slave
Empty

When I press the space bar on Drive 1 it does not select anything displaying a red box stating some of this drive's items will be troublesome and to individually select an item one at a time. There is nothing to select.

Under the BIOS info it lists the drive as a Toshiba MK3018GAS

bios support: extended "int13"
bios drive num: 81h
cyls/hds/sects: 1,024 / 255 / 63
sector count 16,450,560
total bytes: 8,422,686,720

hardware addrs: 01F0-01f7, 03f6
hardware irq: 14
address style: lba-assist trans
drive sectors: 58,605,120
determined by: bios extensions
32-bit xfers: yes, now in use
dma channel: 0 (or bus master)

Is there something I can do with Spinrite? Is there any hope I can recover any data from this drive? Thanks. Rob

[glc]

I doubt it now. Call Ontrack and discuss this with a technician. I'm sure that the data can be recovered, but I'm guessing it will be $1000+.

[robrpb]

Thanks for you help glc. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I have another friend that gave me his compter a couple of days ago and he has the same problem with his desktop that has a Maxtor 80 GB drive in it. How ironic to have two friends in a few weeks that have the same problem. Do you have any ideas as to what happened to these drives? I thought that drives usually crash and make some noise and die. Just curious. Thanks. Rob

[jimmyrules712]

SOmething I would check on is,

There is a small computer store near where i live in kansas city that sells parts, does repairs, etc. One service they opffer is data recovery, and i know I can bring a drive in to them and they usually recover it for me fairly cheaply, and if it is not easily recoverable, they have the ability to tell me that (without charging).

maybe try to find a similar store near you?

[robrpb]

Thanks. I am going to give the drive to my friend and let them deal with that. I was wondering what hard drive manufacturer you would recommend. Western Digital or Samsung. Both are 40 GB, 5400 rpm and about the same price. Rob

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubCategory=380

[glc]

Between those 2, the WD.

[robrpb]

Is there a different brand you prefer?

[glc]

Seagate, but Newegg is out of their 40 giggers.