SO i am transfering a video over to an external HD and half way through I get BSOD. Its late at night so I just unplug it. Next morning I plug back in and start it up. I get another BSOD, so I restart once again and go into setup and my HD can not be found. Under my primary HD it says unknown. I try and use my OS cd to boot into the recovery and it wont even allow me to do that. It says no HD found. Is there any hope for the HD or is it toast

Clear cmos, load bios defaults, do a repair windows install.

If your BIOS is not seeing the drive, a windows repair install won't help. It is most likely that your hard drive has failed and may require data recovery services.

So, before you do too much to your drive, you need to consider the value of the data that is on it. If it is critical data and you don't want to lose it, seek advice from a data recovery professional. If the value of the data is something that you'd like to have back, contact your local computer service technician. If you could care less about the data on the drive, just spend the $80 and buy a new one and save yourself the hassle.

In the meantime, can you post the Brand and Model of your drive? I might be able to provide you with some common causes of your problems.

Luke

Depending on what is wrong with your drive some have had success putting a hard drive in a freezer for a little wile and then trying to read from it agin. If this did work for you I would get my data as fast as possible.

Also depending on how the drive failed you may be able to find an identical drive and take the controller board off it and put it on yours. If your controller board was the problem this will allow access to the drive.

If your data falls into the critical catagory as explained above I would call in the experts before you do anything. Its always possible that anything you do can make it worse.

As a data recovery professional, I strong discourage using the freezer on a hard drive that has data of any value. In very few cases, and I stress, "Very few," cooling the drive might help. However, it is more likely to compound the situation, making a $300 data recovery job into a $2000.

Typical hard drive problems:
- blown or failing PCB
- damaged read/write heads
- damaged media
- failing motor
- corrupt firmware

If, for instance, the cooling of the drive gets it to spin for a while, the damage occurs when the drive suddenly stops without parking the heads, causing another crash, losing more data and decreasing the chances of ever getting anything off the drive.

Again, I stress the importance of contacting a professional data recovery company for advice before risking losing your data. If it isn't worth anything, then try the freezer.

Luke

Well, first i appreciatethe help. but unfortunately the clearing cmos didn't work. The data on the hd is not really important but I would pay up to $75 max to get it back. A lot of photoshop stuff I did and a few folders of digital photos. The sad thing is that i was trying to send it to my external hd.. lol But anyway, Luke, you mentioned what brand of hd i have. It is a Maxtor (OEM) from a dell gx270 tower that I've had for I know at least 5 years i believe.

Its a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40 gig (ATA/133)

chosn1,

Thanks for letting me know the model. The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 drives tend to have head problems. Though, that doesn't rule out corrupt firmware, damaged PCB or media damage. The fact that the drive is over 5 years old, you are doing well to have it run that long. From what I have seen, the average life span of a drive is 3-5 years.

As much as I'd love to offer my company's services for $75, but that wouldn't even cover the costs of the service. If you want to call me at my office (866-750-3169 ext 203), I'll give you a special offer, just to do my best to help you out.

If $75 is truly your maximum, the only thing I can suggest is for you to try is getting a matching donor drive - same Model, Date, Code and matching four letters (ie, K, G, G, A). After that, you can try switching the controller board, in hopes that it might be a problem there.

Good luck,
Luke

thank you luke, i will start looking for one