Hard disk boot failure -> computer won't recognise hard disk

Windows XP sp2 wont boot from hard disk.

After much to do turns out my computer doesnt recognise the hard disk.

I have a seagate 500Gb SATA hard drive, its about a year old, the computer doesnt get hot in the slightest and it shouldnt be dead. I checked the wiring, as far as i can see, its all fine.

only conclusion i come to is that my hard disk is kaput which it shouldnt be. Can anyone give me any other possible solutions to try out before i cry and/or spend money on a new one? theres a lot of data on it i dont want to lose.

If not, ill plug it in to another computer to check, i havent done that yet because it will take me hours - i can only unscrew the hard drive from one side without rearranging the room.

ty!
 
Is your Seagate the 7200.11 series?

We've been seeing a lot of harddrive issues layely that has nothing to do with the drive itself but bad SATA cables aas the cause. Do you have another one you can switch out?

When you say the computer doesn't recognize it we're talking the BIOS here, correct?

Another suggestion is what you have already suggested but I would "slave" it in antother system and see if you can access it that way.
 
yes it is.
i dont, but id rather pay up for a sata cable n see how it goes.
yep, went into standard CMOS features, try n get it to detect HDD, didnt work :( BIOS settings dont show any trace of a hard drive either.

lets hope its the cable, will let you know

ty
 
FYI - the Seagate 11 series had serious issues which is why I asked. (I run two older Seagates in my systems). There 12 series, however, are fine.
 
right this sucks.

because the motherboard in this thing is oooold cant connect hard drive to motherboard due to lack of port for the sata cable. the other computer in the house was bought so i cant take that one apart without losing warranty :( very annoying. im pretty sure im not allowed to take the laptop apart either, since its not mine and even if i did not entirely sure how laptops roll. basically cant 'slave' the hard drive onto another system.

bought a new cable, didnt work.

then plugged in my original PS3 hard drive, which is essentially a sata laptop hard drive, worked fine on all ports with both cables. which means its the hard drive, but the hard drive still whirrs away fine sounds normal when power's plugged in.

any suggestions? what kind of issues?
 
My suggestion is to ask this under our forum that deal with harddrives. You should get more specific help for your issue.
 
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