Both my hard drives are ruined? How did this happen?

[rakan]

Hey Guys,

I need your help with something. I believe that both of my harddrives have been ruined. I have a system with two hard drives. One is a 4 year old Maxtor ATA-133 40GB (Master) that I use for my OS system, the other is a 1 year old ATA-100 Western Digital 160 GB (Slave) that I use for storage.

I was running my computer when my hard drive LED clicked on. My system froze up and when I tried to restart, the BIOS couldn't get past the "detecting IDE devices" step. I couldn't even get into the BIOS check my settings. I disconnected the 160 GB drive and booted the system again. This time the 40GB drive was detected but the startup froze at "Verifying DMI Pool Data". I tried to boot from the CD-ROM again and I was able to so I am only able to enter the BIOS or boot from anything when the 160 GB drive is disconnected (when I try to connect the 160 GB drive by itself or with the 40GB drive I cannot get it past the "detecting IDE devices")

Anyway, when I connected ONLY the 40GB drive I was able to enter the BIOS and boot from the CD-ROM (only with the 160 GB drive disconnected). I booted up using my windows XP CD and tried to repair the Windows partition but it said it couldn't detect ANY hard drives even though my 40GB drive was still connected and it holds my Windows System files. I tried reinstalling Windows XP to this drive but, again, it didn't detect ANY drives.

I disconnected BOTH my 40GB and 160GB drive and connected an old Maxtor ATA-33 20GB drive. Everything works fine using this drive. I am able to boot, install, Windows XP. In fact, I'm typing from the new installation right now.

what I tried to do next was access the other two drives using the 20GB drive as the master and the 40GB and 160 GB drives as slaves. When I do hook up the 160 GB drive as a slave drive I still cannot get past the "detecting IDE devices" step even though the 20GB drive is the master drive and it has a working boot record to a working Windows XP installation.

I guess my questions are...

How did this happen? How did both hard drives get ruined?
Is there anything more I can do to verify that these drives are toast?
Is there anyway to get any data off these drives?

[Cricket]

What kind of IDE cable are you using? A 40 wire or 80 wire?

Have you tried using a different IDE cable?

Cricket

[rakan]

I am using the wire that came with the ATA-133 40GB Maxtor drive. I think it is 40. Would that matter? I still don't understand how both my hard drives got ruined.

[tempus]

More information is needed. It sounds like the power supply may have had something to do with your current problems. Post your system specs for more help.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by rakan I am using the wire that came with the ATA-133 40GB Maxtor drive. I think it is 40.

Does it have blue, grey and black connectors? If it does, it's a 80 wire IDE cable.

Make sure the hard drive jumpers are set to CS (cable select). I would try another 80 wire IDE cable...the 80 wire IDE cables use thinner wires that can break or corrode faster than the older 40 wire IDE cables. I've had a few go bad after a few years of use.

Cricket

[rakan]

I am using

AK38n Shuttle mainboard
Athlon XP 1800
512 MB corsair PC2100 ram
Geforce 3 Ti200
430 watt Antec TruePower
Pioneer DVR-110D

Currently using ATA-33 Maxtor 20 GB 92048D8 hard drive

My fried drives are ATA-133 Maxtor 40GB drive and ATA-100 Western Digital 160GB drive

How can my power supply be the problem? Everything works fine on the 20GB one I have installed now.

[rakan]

Originally Posted by Cricket Does it have blue, grey and black connectors? If it does, it's a 80 wire IDE cable. Make sure the hard drive jumpers are set to CS (cable select). I would try another 80 wire IDE cable...the 80 wire IDE cables use thinner wires that can break or corrode faster than the older 40 wire IDE cables. I've had a few go bad after a few years of use. Cricket

Thanks for the reply,

It only has a gray and black connector. I'm currently using this cable to connect my working 20GB drive to my mainboard.

[rakan]

Is there any way I can test my power supply. It seems to be working fine now but I don't want to fry another hard drive. I also noticed that when I try to connect my 160 GB hard drive that it doesn't even vibrate or make any noise. I think it may be completely dead.

[Ob1]

if you have another system, put the 160gb drive in there, jumper it to slave and see if you can detect it in there, or see if it spins up and makes any noise.

if you are worried about the psu being bad, i would buy a new one, you can get a good cheap powersupply and see if that fixes your problem, search these forums, people are always wanting advice on building new pc's which should have advice on good PSU's

[tempus]

Originally Posted by rakan Is there any way I can test my power supply. It seems to be working fine now but I don't want to fry another hard drive. I also noticed that when I try to connect my 160 GB hard drive that it doesn't even vibrate or make any noise. I think it may be completely dead.

The other thing that makes drives fail is excessive heat. If the power supply is working normally then it may not be the problem. I noticed you have an antec which is a good brand and large enough to not be overstressed. So that leaves heat as a maybe in the failure of your drives.

[glc]

Test your drives with manufacturer's diagnostics, they run from a boot floppy or boot CD. Maxtor's is called Powermax, and WD's is called Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. They are free downloads. Use an 80 wire cable, and jumper the drives to Cable Select.

[rakan]

Originally Posted by glc Test your drives with manufacturer's diagnostics, they run from a boot floppy or boot CD. Maxtor's is called Powermax, and WD's is called Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. They are free downloads. Use an 80 wire cable, and jumper the drives to Cable Select.

I tried this but whenever I hook the 160 GB drive up to the motherboard it won't even let me boot up. It just gets stuck on the "detecting IDE devices". So even though my BIOS is set up to boot from the CD-ROM and I have the CD in the drive, I cannot get to the CD contents with the 160 GB drive attached.

I've tried different cables, different jumper settings (all of them actually), and regardless of the setting or whether or not the 160 GB is set up as a master, slave, single drive, or cable select; I can never get past the "detecing IDE devices" in my BIOS. The maxtor 40 GB drive is another story. I can boot up with that drive but I can't access any data. Weird, huh?

[glc]

You have a failed 160gb drive and a corrupted 40gb. Contact WD for a warranty replacement on the 160 (if it is still on warranty) and run Powermax on the 40 and see what it comes up with. You may be able to run chkdsk /r on it by booting the XP CD into the repair console and get it working again if it's not too damaged.

I'm thinking the 160 had a catastrophic failure - and corrupted Windows on the 40. I don't think the 40 is physically damaged but only Powermax will tell you for sure.

[rakan]

Originally Posted by glc You have a failed 160gb drive and a corrupted 40gb. Contact WD for a warranty replacement on the 160 (if it is still on warranty) and run Powermax on the 40 and see what it comes up with. You may be able to run chkdsk /r on it by booting the XP CD into the repair console and get it working again if it's not too damaged. I'm thinking the 160 had a catastrophic failure - and corrupted Windows on the 40. I don't think the 40 is physically damaged but only Powermax will tell you for sure.

Thanks GLC,

I'm starting to think that is what's happened. A friend of mine tried each drive in his machine and had the same results with each as I had. I will try Powermax tonight as soon as I find the CD. Fortunatly I have a recent backup of that drive. Maybe this will give me the excuse I need to upgrade Thanks again for your input.

[rakan]

Another possibility that comes to mind is the IDE controller on my Motherboard. Is is possible it caused the other two drives to fail? My motherboard is old (3 years) and it could be making intermitant power surges. A buddy of mine told me he went through 4 CD-ROMs before he identified his problem as a faulty IDE controller that, every once in a while, gave him power surges. Currently my 20 GB drive runs fine on this controller though...

[glc]

If the 20gb runs fine, I think that rules out controller issues.