IDE HD has power but is not seen in BIOS

yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
edited August 2009 in Hardware
This is a continuation of my previous thread after doing some more trouble shooting.

The HD is spinning so power is not the problem. I've used the other IDE connector that works on the other IDE HD I have (I know, I know, they are dinosaurs but I have these two in my comp for old times sake).

I'm just wondering what would happen to make the drive not be recognized my the CPU and MOBO.

The oly thing I really care about on there is my photos.

Thanks for any advice.

Comments

  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    If you have more than one drive on the IDE cable with the HD in question, there could be a master / slave conflict. Make sure the jumpers on both drives are in the Cable Select position, or otherwise make sure one is set to master and one is set to slave.

    If the hard drive is alone on the IDE cable, it could be that the drive is damaged. You could try it in another computer, but I wouldn't hold too much hope of success.
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    My boot drive is on a healthy SATA. If I set on the IDEs to Master, will the computer try to boot from that drive?
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    Actually, disregard last post. I tried different master/slave combos and it still wasn't recognized. Any other suggestions?
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    I was referring to the hardware setup inside your computer. Is the hard drive sharing the IDE cable with another drive, or is it by itself?
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    It was shareing a cable and when I noticed the problem, both were set to "cable select." In BIOS, before the problem started, one was recognized as a master and one as slave.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Is one of the drives on the cable still recognized? We can rule out a controller problem if so.
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    Yes, the other drive is still recognized.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Sounds like simple old age may have taken its toll on the drive in question... try it alone on the IDE cable, and if that doesn't work, try it in another PC if possible, but it sounds like the drive may be toast.
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    Well this is the only PC I have. Boo hoo.

    Can a pro at least retrieve the data? The disks inside are probably fine......
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    It's likely that the data could be recovered from the drive, but I don't know how much it costs. Since it requires specialized equipment to retrieve data from a hard drive with a failed controller circuit, it could be expensive.
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    OK. Well I appreciate the effort.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    No trouble... hope you can get what you need off the drive. That's the cycle of life for computers, unfortunately... hard drives have moving parts, hence they tend to die faster than the other pieces of the system.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    If you can find exactly the same drive, you can sometimes pull the circuit board off the new drive, put it on the old, and get to the data that way.

    Data recovery can be expensive, so this is another option, but it may not work (and then you'd have another old IDE drive laying around).
  • yossarian084yossarian084 Norwich, VT, USA Member
    edited August 2009
    Thats not a bad idea. Its worth a shot!
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