Hard disk not being detected

[Ashutosh Jha]

Hi! I am new to Techspot and this is my first post.
I have a PC which has stopped detecting the hard drive and will not even boot. The dard disk is Seagate ST340810A 40GB. I have tried swapping cables and power supplies but to no avail. Earlier it was occasionally giving similar problem but used to work fine when the cable connections were re made. I have data on the drive which needs to be recovered.
The local vendor tells me that a new 'logic card' will need to be put in as the old one has gone kaput. He also says that the data can be recovered but is charging a fortune, and that some of the data may be lost or corrupt. He is not ready to sell the 'logic card' to me.
Being not so knowledgable in this area, please advise how should I proceed to make the drive back into working status.
Rgds/AJ

 

[Tedster]

You will not be able to recover ANY data if you have a hardware malfunction without replacing the faulty part. Even so, your data still may be non-recoverable. ALWAYS backup important data to more than one device.
You can try using an IDE to USB adapter, but if the controller board on the hard drive is toast, it's dead.

 

[Ashutosh Jha]

Thanks for this but not of much help. I tried replacing the card from other hard disks of the same model nut they too got burnt. I cannot feel the hard disk 'hum' too. Now, if this hard disk will not work and the data is gone, can I open it to learn something. I tried seagate's 'seatools; but it took 5 hours to try connecting the IDE controller and then I had to switch it off. I heard that by keeping the disk in fridge could help (to loosen the bearings, which could help the disk spin), is it correct? Can I do something with the ahrdware which could help. I do not mind losing data as long as I learn something.

 

[raybay]

Somebody is feeding you perhaps a bit too much bull.
Logic card? Did the shop test the card or trade out with another known working card.
Talk to another technician.
You could have any of a number of problems that need to be explored.
What do you see when you go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Managment -> Drive Management. Is it still undetected there.
Set the drive jumper to Slave, and another drive jumpered as Master? Is it still undetected?
There are still things to be done. For one, the controller card can sometimes be replaced with a board off another long enough to rescue the data.
If the data is valuable, there are a number of companies who will rescue the data for a price.
The cold drive idea only works if the card on the drive works.
USB external drives do not work because they don't provide adequate power... but other adapters can be helpful.