Hard Disk failure

[UKcharlie]

Hi everyone, i must confess that dispite owning a computer for the past 10 years i know very little about them apart from the day to day stuff and basic problem solving. However, the way my hard drive has been responding has confused me completely as it is not so much a hard drive "failure" as an inability of windows to see some of my music and photos that are on there.

In short:
The disc is visible in "My Computer"
I can access the disc
I can access around 15GB of the 55GB on the disc
The other 40GB of data has just "dissapeared"
I have not installed or unistalled anything on that disc as it is a secondary disc and solely used for data
Using Winamp, all the songs are there but some cant be found/ played
Using Winamp, some songs can be played that arent accessible when i try and open the music folder

I have not tried anything to try and solve the problem as usually when i try something it fails dismally and the problem becomes beyond repair. The only thing i have done is restart the computer so it is pretty much a fresh failure.

Can i ask the advice of you guys what the next step should be? The controllers say they are working correctly and i havent yet done a system restore yet. I have the ability to try the disk on another computer and if possible i would like to recover the lost data as it was only partially backed up.

Could someone also tell me what has happened to the hard disk if it has not completely failed as well.

Many thanks for any help that you can give, i hope i have given all the information you need (disc details are below). Much appreciated,

Charlie



Manufacturer Maxtor
Hard Disk Family DiamondMax Plus 9
Form Factor 3.5"
Formatted Capacity 60 GB
Model ID Maxtor 6Y060L0

[Leonardo]

Your experience with troubleshooting and repairing/upgrading may not be high, but your diagnosis in this case would appear to be correct. It does sound like your hard drive is starting to fail. Go to Maxtor's Internet site and download their hard drive diagnostic software and see what it tells you. The software is easy to install and use.

I would do that without delay. Do not use your computer for other things until you've checked the hard drive. If your drive is going bad, every extra minute of use jeapardizes it's lifespan even more.

[UKcharlie]

Many thanks for the quick response. I have done as you have suggested and run the diagnostic ... It is indeed a harddisc failure and i have sent all the info off to Maxtor. Unfortunately it is a 1 to 2 day reply.

Can u advise what to do next. I have backed up all the available data but there is still 40GIGs i would like to backup some of which is still accessible as i can play it, i just cant see it :-( Is there software i can use (preferrably freeware/ shareware. Thanks for the good advice and thanks for any other help that you can give

[Leonardo]

There is a trialware data recovery software available. Apparently, it works fairly well. Sorry, I don't remember the name of it. Here at the forums, do a search for "recovery" and you should be able to find the appropriate thread(s) concerning data recovery. Before you do anything though, and until you are ready to run the recovery software, unplug both the data and power cables to your bad hard drive. You don't want to run it any more than you absolutely have to.

[UKcharlie]

Will have a look. Am turning the whole thing off and will research on a mates computer to see what i need to do. Well thanks again for the help, its now 3.20am and ive got an early start tomorrow so calling it a night now.

Ive definately got a love hate relationship with these things. Pity it hates me more than i love it :-(

[Leonardo]

If the money is available, I recommend that you purchase a spare hard drive and an external hard drive enclosure. If you have data that is important, do routine data backups, or even better, complete system backups. Don't get a ready-made backup system. It's almost always more economical to get the enclosure and hard drive separately.

[UKcharlie]

Cheers for all your help Leonardo. Just thought i would let you know my progress so this topic can be closed. I used GetDataBack to recover most of the lost data (a superb program) so the damage wasnt too bad and have backed up on dvd. Maxtor havent replied regarding a warranty but if none (which i expect) i will invest in a larger internal drive instead and transfer the data over.

I think the situation has been sorted out to the best conclusion possible. Many thanks for your advice and quick responce. A great helper!

[Leonardo]

UKcharlie. It's nice to hear positive comments from new members. You'll find that most of the users are friendly and helpful. That is the charter of Short-Media: to first and foremost be a friendly community centered on computer technology, and secondly, to provide expertise where we can on computer building, upgrading, and repairing. Please be active here and you'll find a comfortable place.