Missing hard drive?

WhereHere1 · 23 Nov 2020 at 16:42

Hi guys need a bit of help.

Ok so my computer has two NVMe drives and one Hard Drive.

mom so I don’t use the hard drive much and I unplugged it ages ago. I thought it was still unplugged but it was still plugged in so I don’t know how long it’s been missing on the actual computer for.

So when I open up file explorer when it is all plugged in the hard drive doesn’t show up. Under disk management the drive doesn’t show. Under device manager the drive doesn’t show. On bios it doesn’t show.

I’m not sure the the HD is dead, so I’ve connected another HD on a different sata port. This other HD doesn’t show on file manager or disk management, however it does show when I’m in the bios.

Why is this hard drive showing in the bios but not in windows?

Also if the HD has failed is there anyway of getting the info off it?

bremen1874 · 23 Nov 2020 at 16:53

WhereHere1 said:
Also if the HD has failed is there anyway of getting the info off it?

Yes, but disk recovery can be very expensive. You've got to really, really, want the data back.

If they were my drives I'd be...

Trying different cables (data and power).
Trying different ports (and/or computers).
Checking the ports aren't disabled in the bios.
Trying them via USB with an adapter.
Etc.

~cw · 23 Nov 2020 at 17:04

Can you hear the drive spinning at all when the machine is powered up? If it's not, or it makes ugly sounds then nothing else, the bearing may have seized. There are a few extreme techniques to try and get a poorly drive rotating again just enough for one data retrieval, but nothing is guaranteed.

Have you checked all cabling, slots, and tried an external connector? Assuming it's SATA, fairly cheap USB3-SATA adapters are available from the usual venues for small amounts. I bought a Sabrent "EC-SSHD" for £7.99 in January (good for 2.5" drives only) - if it's a full size spinny drive you need something which is mains powered to provide enough power to the drive.

What model is the undetected drive and what motherboard do you have? I have an intermittent issue with a WD Black on my Asus motherboard, sometimes it just doesn't 'see' the drive despite it working fine previously. I have to power cycle the PC for it to enumerate the drive at POST.

WhereHere1 · 23 Nov 2020 at 17:05

Ok so I think it’s definitely dead, another hard drive is working and I used the exact same cables and nothing is showing up.

The USB adapter seems like a good idea I will try that.

WhereHere1 · 23 Nov 2020 at 17:18

~cw said:
Can you hear the drive spinning at all when the machine is powered up? If it's not, or it makes ugly sounds then nothing else, the bearing may have seized. There are a few extreme techniques to try and get a poorly drive rotating again just enough for one data retrieval, but nothing is guaranteed.

Have you checked all cabling, slots, and tried an external connector? Assuming it's SATA, fairly cheap USB3-SATA adapters are available from the usual venues for small amounts. I bought a Sabrent "EC-SSHD" for £7.99 in January (good for 2.5" drives only) - if it's a full size spinny drive you need something which is mains powered to provide enough power to the drive.

What model is the undetected drive and what motherboard do you have? I have an intermittent issue with a WD Black on my Asus motherboard, sometimes it just doesn't 'see' the drive despite it working fine previously. I have to power cycle the PC for it to enumerate the drive at POST.

Ok so I just listened to the hard drive and it does sound like it’s starting up, but I can’t be 100%.

the data cables should be working because I just got a different hard drive to run from them.

the model hard drive I have is a seagate barracuda ST3000DM001, the motherboard is a MSI z270 Titanium m power gaming.

The sata to usb converter sounds like it might be my next step. I never backed it up because it was too much data to back up xD. It’s mainly family photos etc

I do have a second computer so I could try putting the hard drive in that tomorrow

WhereHere1 · 23 Nov 2020 at 17:40

When I go into CMD,

I type “wmic” and then “diskdrive get status”

and all the hard drives get a Ok status

Hmmm

Cyber-Mav · 24 Nov 2020 at 13:14

WhereHere1 said:
another hard drive is working and I used the exact same cables and nothing is showing up.

so you used another known working drive with the same cables and it too is not showing up?

WhereHere1 · 25 Nov 2020 at 13:10

Cyber-Mav said:
so you used another known working drive with the same cables and it too is not showing up?

oh sorry I might have wrote it wrong.

I set up a different hard drive got that one working and then I connected the broken hard drive to make sure the cables weren’t broken.

The external adapter has arrived and I have tried using it. It’s obvious now what the broken hard drive is doing because I can move it away from the sound of the computer. Ok so when I start the hard drive up it definitely spins up, but after about 10 seconds it just completely stops spinning and goes silent.

Is there anything I can do with this?

I tried the seagate software to diagnosed the problem but the software couldn’t find the drive.

Cyber-Mav · 25 Nov 2020 at 14:18

i have used kroll ontrack for data recovery in the past. a lot of other smaller shady companies around that charge to look at the drive and will tell you that they cant recovery anything. i only trust that ontrack company for this sort of work.

t31os · 29 Nov 2020 at 23:48

In any case, test a different data(sata) cable anyway. The drive is realistically only going to make noise when it's being read from or written to, so that's not much of measure for whether a drive works(bad drives can still make noise), but more whether it's completely dead in the water.

Test a different cable anyway, and test different ports on the motherboard to.