Hard drive dead?

[Xero (1)ne]

My friend recently gave me a 80Gb IDE Baracuda...

The problem is it doesn't feel like the hard drive is spinning up. Its not detected in the BIOS but I do believe Windows sees it (that's what my friend said, I will need to put it in my brother's box to make sure.)

Is there any way to test how much power the hard drive is getting/using?

Any insight about maybe the firmware on the drive?

[sushrukh]

If the HDD isn't getting detected by the BIOS, then how do you know that windoes is seeing it Xero ? Is it present in the device manager ? If both the BIOS & windows aren't detecting it, then i think,it's a dead drive if the jumper & cables are perfectly connected.I don't think there's any utility that you can use to check how much power the drive is getting if the HDD isn't getting detected.Best of luck.

[Blue Moon Dragon]

are you able to access files on the drive through windows? try setting jumpers or connecting it to different ide cables...install the driver if there is one, because they usually come w/ a driver (at least mine did)

[Xero (1)ne]

Yah the jumpers are all right, but it just doesn't like the bios.

I don't know about accessing files or anything since I haven't put it in my brother's computer yet but I also don't know what happened to it to make the drive fail for my friend. I think it might be power related. :ahhhhh:

My other friend was having some troubles with his seagate and his bios but he said after he formatted it it was fine. :jawdrop:

Once I get my brother's Box running (system repair right now) I'll tell you what Windows sees.

Has anyone ever updated firmware for a hard drive before? I know it might sound silly but I like to try every possible solution.

[Xero (1)ne]

Ok, so when I boot to the Windows XP (SP2) CD it does detect the 80Gb seagate (supposedly dead) but not the master which is a maxtor. I'm going to format the drive without the maxtor installed (it's also 80gb and I don't want my brother's stuff to accidentally get lost) and we'll see what happens from there. :ahhhhh:

[Xero (1)ne]

LMAO

Nevermind I just dropped it while changing the jumper. It had a little spark when I powered on the computer and nothing else is different. I'm pretty sure it's dead now if not before. :lol:

And I guess nobody's ever updated their firmware for their hard drives? Hmmm...I must be the only crazy one? ;-)

[Kougar]

As far as I know you can't update the HDD firmware. Unless I am mistaken if the BIOS doesn't register the drive, then the OS won't be able to see or use it.

[tomato]

That's what I thought as well Kougar... I wasn't even aware that updating a HD's firmware was even possible for the average user? :?

[Xero (1)ne]

Seatools lets me do some low level options so I do believe it's possible to flash your HDD.

My friend had the same problem with his drive not being detected in the bios but he booted to the windows CD and formatted it and it was fine.

Perhaps I could order a new board for the thing. Anyone know where I should call? :)

[=CDU=Above]

You're going to pay more for the component and postage. What's an 80 GB IDE going for now-a-days...like $65.00 OEM? Go pick one up and hum that one in the bin.

Or else hook it up and reformat it.

If that isn't possible, FDISK the drive. FDISK used to be a popular tool but not so much anymore no that everyone is using NTFS filing. However, FDISK is still a simple tool for many formatting and partitioning a harddrive.

If you want to try it out, I looked up the link for ya.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q255867/


I'm not say that this is the problem but at least you'll know that the disk in as clean as new.