Hard Drives

[moonraker558]

Hi Guy\'s, I seem to have lost one of my three hard drives on my pc, it is used only for storage in case of a cfash so i dont lose everything i.e. thousands of mp3\'s and pictures. My other two drives are still showing the system but my spare just vanished overnight, I havn\'t changed any settings at all so i am at a loss as to how I can retrieve it. Any help would be much appreciated. Regards Moonraker.

[TTG]

Can you see it in Control Panel, System, Hardware tab, Device manager, Disk drives?

Is the pc under warranty. If it is do not do the next bit...

If you are confident enough, ensure the pc is not plugged into the power supply and open the case.
Make sure the drives cable connection is firmly in place.

Try again.

[Hymie]

There are companies, who for lots of money, will attempt to retrieve the information from a dead drive – but it is expensive.

If TTG’s suggestion does not work, I would recommend installing the drive as a slave on another PC to see if it sees the drive.

Next, (if the information on the drive is worth it), I would purchase an adapter which converts the drive’s IDE connector to a USB connector, allowing the dive to be plugged into a USB port. These converters come with an external mains supply – providing power for the drive. You can purchase them fairly cheaply on ebay – or more expensively from Maplin.
Then tightly wrap the drive in a plastic bag and place it in a freezer for at least 12 hours.
Remove the drive from the freezer, opening the plastic bag as little of possible to make the connections, power the drive and connect to your PC. Be prepared to copy the info from the drive a quickly as possible – it could fail again at anytime.
This trick has worked for me, reviving a dead drive – but I did not succeed in recovering any useful information – even with recovery software.

[moonraker558]

Thanx guys will try the leads first to see if that works. Moonraker