Hard Drive Detection Troubleshooting

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-22 12:50am

I've had a failure on my secondary hard drive; it's an IBM Deskjet (120GPX), possibly a victim of the "click of death." I know the drive is dying, but I had been using some tools to pull data off, but it requires the computer to actually recognize that a drive is hooked up (not necessarily be able to read it, just so long as it sees that it's there).

Does anyone know a way to Force the computer to recognize that a drive is physically attached? I can hear that the drive is running. When I look in BIOS it just says nothing is connected (I've got an Intel board and processor, if that's relavent).

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2006-01-22 01:08am

The only thing I can think of to try off the top of my head would be find out all the specifications of the drive (access mode, capacity, cylinder, etc.) and then try setting those settings in your BIOS manually, as opposed to having it do an auto-detect. I'm not sure if it will work, but I think it's worth a try.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-01-22 01:16am

If you have 25 bucks to spare, you can order a USB to IDE adapter kit. Works on 2.5" and 3.5." I have one, and it enabled me to save data on an otherwise porked HDD. Check Newegg.

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2006-01-22 02:09am

If you don't mind spending the cash you can bring your computer into a reputable computer shop. They might be able to fix it.

Bring it to a privately owned shop if possible one with techs on staff. They will probably be able to do it in a day if they arent busy.

Don't bring it to a large chain store like staples or best buy they will just want you to ship it out to the manufacuter.

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-22 12:08pm

Darth Quorthon wrote:The only thing I can think of to try off the top of my head would be find out all the specifications of the drive (access mode, capacity, cylinder, etc.) and then try setting those settings in your BIOS manually, as opposed to having it do an auto-detect. I'm not sure if it will work, but I think it's worth a try.

It won't let me try to manually add it if it doesn't "see" that it's there. Thanks though.

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-22 12:09pm

Alferd Packer wrote:If you have 25 bucks to spare, you can order a USB to IDE adapter kit. Works on 2.5" and 3.5." I have one, and it enabled me to save data on an otherwise porked HDD. Check Newegg.

That's an interesting idea, and I think I'll try that. Even if it doesn't work, it sounds like a pretty handy gadget to have.

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-22 12:13pm

LongVin wrote:If you don't mind spending the cash you can bring your computer into a reputable computer shop. They might be able to fix it.

Bring it to a privately owned shop if possible one with techs on staff. They will probably be able to do it in a day if they arent busy.

Given the history of the drive's line (the problem has caused the Deskstar line to be referred to as the Death Star), I've resigned myself to the fact that the thing is beyond repair. I'm just interesting in salvaging what I can off of it. The software I was using to sift the data surface was working just fine until it stopped seeing the drive was there. If I can get it to be seen I can save most of the data, but being seen is proving to be the hard part.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2006-01-22 11:25pm

The problem with the Deskstar line (particularly the 75GXP line) is that the platters heated up to the point where the headers couldn't properly read/write data. The only options you have are to either turn the system off and let the drive cool down or to find a drive exactly like it and switch out motherboards on the drives.

IBM released firmware a couple of years ago that supposedly resolved this issue. My 45GB 75GXP has been running fine ever since I got it back from IBM.