X40 thinkpad hdd not found in BIOS. Please help.

[reikochii]

This is a critical issue to me. The laptop was bought couple months ago, so I haven't done any backup of my files. (which are very important to me)

It's an ibm x40, 40GB hitachi hdd (C4K40 model HTC424040F9AT00).

Have been working fine, until 2 sudden crashes.
Both was blue screen of "dumping ..memory" (although I had 512mb ram onboard, and was only using mpc to watch movie)
Prior to crash, hdd was making funny clicking sounds repeatingly. (I've heard a similar sound before, on my desktop when it wasn't spinning properly.)
The sound occured when I was trying to skip some parts of the movie (by clicking on different time points). This same crash happened twice.

Then finally on last boot up, I had an error message of some dll not found, windows cannot run.

I restarted, and this time, BIOS does not detect my hdd..
and it tries to run Intel boot agent (from network..)
I still hear the same clicking sound from the hdd...

I've tried hdd regenerator, win boot disk, etc...
All of them says HDD NOT FOUND.

Could someone tell me what's wrong? Is the hdd dead....? or is it motherboard prob?
Are there any methods I could possibly recover my data?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rick]

This is a critical issue to me. The laptop was bought couple months ago, so I haven't done any backup of my files. (which are very important to me)

It's an ibm x40, 40GB hitachi hdd (C4K40 model HTC424040F9AT00).

Have been working fine, until 2 sudden crashes.
Both was blue screen of "dumping ..memory" (although I had 512mb ram onboard, and was only using mpc to watch movie)
Prior to crash, hdd was making funny clicking sounds repeatingly. (I've heard a similar sound before, on my desktop when it wasn't spinning properly.)
The sound occured when I was trying to skip some parts of the movie (by clicking on different time points). This same crash happened twice.

Then finally on last boot up, I had an error message of some dll not found, windows cannot run.

I restarted, and this time, BIOS does not detect my hdd..
and it tries to run Intel boot agent (from network..)
I still hear the same clicking sound from the hdd...

I've tried hdd regenerator, win boot disk, etc...
All of them says HDD NOT FOUND.

Could someone tell me what's wrong? Is the hdd dead....? or is it motherboard prob?
Are there any methods I could possibly recover my data?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it is very safe to say your hard drive is dead.

Unfortunately, there's no way to recover your data aside from some really geeky stuff... Sometimes letting the drive sit for a few months will allow you to access it again (temporarily). You may also be able to remove and freeze your drive in a freezer for a couple of days and it will provide temporary access. There's also the option of changing the electronics with an identical drive or taking the drive to a data recovery center etc..

But there's really no _practical_ way to restore your data.

 

[reikochii]

Thank you for your reply.

Would you mind telling me which method is most reliable?
Do data recovery centers work 100%? Are they expensive? Would it be worth it?

I'm thinking of taking it to the ibm service center.. Is it a one-shot try?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Rick]

Professional data recovery is VERY expensive. Usually in the thousands, but it may be the only way to get your data back.

Waiting and the freezer trick are just unreliable hope-it-works solutions which may or may not work for you. But the chance of failure is far greater than the chance of successful recovery.

Replacing the electronics of the drive may be a solution if you can find an identical drive, but most likely what you are dealing with is a mechanical failure. Replacing the mechanics of the drive may be possible, but that's best left to the professionals with the right tools and experience.

 

[IronDuke]

Sorry to say yet another person thinking about backing up after a failure. This is realy a hard way to learn the lesson.