Hard drive, can it be saved?

[araknis]

I have a 500 gb westec hard drive that used to be on my computer. When I downloaded a bios for my computer it no longer worked. So I installed my 250 gb hd back onto my computer and everything is fine. My ? is: Can the 500 gb hd be saved and used again? Maybe a 2nd hard drive or anything like that? is there a way to reformat it I guess is a better ? to ask? It had more memory on it than my current 250 gb one does so it ran a lot faster for me.

 

[Tmagic650]

Go to Westecs website and download their drive installation/testing software. The hard drive may need a low-level format

 

[hrlow2]

By memory, are you referring to the L2 cache size?

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

I have a 500 gb westec hard drive that used to be on my computer. When I downloaded a bios for my computer it no longer worked. So I installed my 250 gb hd back onto my computer and everything is fine. My ? is: Can the 500 gb hd be saved and used again? Maybe a 2nd hard drive or anything like that? is there a way to reformat it I guess is a better ? to ask? It had more memory on it than my current 250 gb one does so it ran a lot faster for me.

So is there still an operating system or any data on the 500gb and do you care if all that data is gone? As long as the drive isn't damaged, there is no reason it will not work fine, which makes me wonder why it stopped working in the first place, you did get the latest bios and not an old bios? There really shouldn't be any reason why you can't just plug the drive back in as a slave...

By memory, are you referring to the L2 cache size?

L2 Cache? His/Her post is confusing, but as far as I know, L2 cache would apply to a CPU...?

 

[Tekkaraiden]

By memory I would assume he meant the hard drives cache memory or the capacity of the drive all together. Now does it not detect the drive in the bios or does it give you a disc boot error. Is the 500gb drive an ide drive or a sata? What motherboard do you have and what version of the bios?

 

[hrlow2]

Sorry. I had Buffer size in mind.

 

[araknis]

As far as the memory, I was refering to the memory on the hard drive itself. I will try your suggestions and report back on my progress. As for the info on the drive I dont care because it is on my main drive now. Also it is a sata drive. Sorry combining all together.

 

[araknis]

Yeah the memory of my 250gb hd is only 8mb and the 500 is 16 mb. Sorry for all the confusion.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

As for the info on the drive I dont care because it is on my main drive now.

If you can go into the bios and see the new drive, set it to slave and it should boot right up into windows off your new drive, then you can just format the old drive...thats as far as I can say.

 

[jopower]

Hold the low level format for a minute. You guys missed something: Araknis, you stated the BIOS update was for the MOTHERBOARD: "When I downloaded a bios for my computer it no longer worked." Therefore the 500 GB drive is NOT likely to be the problem.

Since the error occurred with the BIOS update, you should be able to return to the previous version. These BIOS files should be at the motherboard makers site. The newest one you tried may be a bit too beta and you didn't know it OR you somehow got an old or damaged one. Either way, I suspect it likely this BIOS version wasn't bug checked for drive size restrictions.

Now, if possible, try the drive on another SATA compatible PC which recognizes the drive at full capacity. If it boots as master, you'll be asked for drivers and all that... just shut it down. This will confirm if the drive itself is the problem or the BIOS update. If you have data to retrieve, set as slave and copy it all off before using further drastic measures. Then go back to the original PC to apply the fix.

The fix if the drive is OK: Re-flash the mobo BIOS with the last/previous stable version OR the one you had to begin with (if you can recall it). Don't be too surprised if you have to try more than one BIOS file to get the right one. I know this will be tricky as you most likely did the 1st BIOS update from Windoze on the 500 GB drive. There are 2 options: 1) You'll have to setup a DOS boot floppy disk on another PC, copy all the files to it, boot, run the flash program and swap the BIOS files (you may be lucky and find there is a "bootable floppy maker" BIOS update file at the mobo site to do all that with less fuss). Make sure it's a good, fresh formatted floppy and there are no disk errors. 2) Alternately for the non-command line literate, install Windoze to any smaller drive (SATA or IDE) the mobo supports, do the BIOS update fix on the 30 day OS trial without installing any extraneous drivers, shut down and reinstall the 500 GB drive to see if it's all Jake. Your drive should show up and boot if it is.