HELP ..Hard Failure or Trouble...?

[LOWTECH]

I have 2 hard drives on my computer last week my second hard drive failed me to get access to it. When clicking on it to open the drive it takes 30 seconds to then inform me that this drive is not formatted , do I wish to do so...

By going ahead a formatting the drive I may get it going again but will I suppose loose all data..then there is the point in using it after formatting it, will it fail again..?

On opening the properties is says File System RAW...and used space, free space and capacity all read 0. I believe its FAT32, and had tried converting to ntfs like my main drive but it won`t have it.

I have had no trouble during the last 2 years. So do I scrap the drive..60GB, or is there a way of getting it working again to regain the data.

Thanks for any help or ideas.

[redwudz]

You can try running the Windows utility in 'Properties>Tools' for the drive and check the disk for errors and attempt a repair, but I suspect it's on it's way out. Hard drives are cheap enough these days that I would just replace it. If it has valuable data on it, then try some recovery programs. If not, toss it and get a new one. If it is a internal mechanical problem with the drive itself, it's not worth depending on it only to have it fail later.

Of course there is the off chance there is nothing wrong with it, but your description sounds like a dying drive.

[gll99]

Before I or anyone else answers in more detail do not format the drive. There is every possibility that the file system has been corrupted but can be restored.

I need sleep so maybe someone else will jump in but many times the drive is not dead it may be an impending problem or a virus or trojan could have damaged it. Even if the partition got deleted if you do nothing else to the drive there is hope.

[deckard8]

It's very possible that you've just lost the partition/partition table on the drive.
Try Testdisk software to recover it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Bjs]

As a last resort , give drive rescue a run at recovering files ... partitions will be discovered prior to recovery .

[LOWTECH]

I have tried chdsk buy it just fails at the start, the disk just refuses to except any command to it.
I will try some of your other suggestion ..thanks all.....will get back to later ..off to work..

[videobread]

Try replacing the IDE ribbon cable or SATA cable. The circuit from your mother board to the drive may be faulty. Also try giving it power from a different power lead. The power cable may be bad, but not likely since it is powering up. Good luck.

[LOWTECH]

Here is a final update to my hard drive failure problem..

Having tried everything to get my Second 60gb drive to run, I gave up with no result acheived to run it.

I finally used ...... Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery.. program. This has scanned my 60gb drive and picked up 98gb worth of info ..... including 40gb of deleted files.......

I have recovered 28gb of all required files to my main larger drive, and success has been the out come in this case to get back lost wanted files etc.

I will now put a hammer through the 60gb drive as its not worth chancing formatting and using again, cheaper to get another......

Hope this has been of help to anyone else....... Thanks to all for past help.