Thread: back-up drive missing

alright, I've posted this before (solved with dust cleaned out months ago), but what happened overnight is a different story.

I leave my PC on at nights to let the security programs run the scans. well, this morning I woke up to the PC stuck on AVG scanning. I rebooted and let the disk check system (that blue screen you get when rebooting on a problem) run before going to work. coming home I find it stuck again on the back-up drive.

this is a removable 300GB HD that I got 3 years ago mainly for the backup storage. I split it in half for the music files and for the pics and other important stuff. one half is at FAT32 and the other is NTSF - don't ask why, I was experimenting at the time and left both at that.

so I rebooted again, skipped the disk check process and went to full mode XP system. then checked the explorer directory to see what the problem is, only to get stuck there with the explorer failing to access the backup drive.

I took the box apart, drive by drive, using the aerosal dusters to clean the **** out. put it all back together, hooked the box back up and when booting up, the disk check system stayed off. into full mode, I checked the explorer and the backup drive is no longer there.

drive failure? possible. is it accessible in order to save the contents on it? I ****in hope so!

so, help a brotha out, please.

I had something very similar happen to me a few weeks ago. I couldn't get any of my PCs to recognize a WD MyBook. I tried everything. Assuming it was dead, I decided to take it apart. I ended up using my drivewire to see if I could access it directly as just the bare drive - and voila - it appeared like magic. Something in the USB/Firewire interface had failed, and I was able to recover everything off the drive. I'll eventually just use it as an eSata drive eventually when I get a computer with the proper interface. I tried 3 different IDE - sata connectors and couldn't get any of them to work properly.

is the SATA cable a thin one with a plug smaller than the ordinary one (ATA)?

whatever it is, the backup drive is the only one of the 3 HDs connected by that small cable.

Originally Posted by BeerMan

is the SATA cable a thin one with a plug smaller than the ordinary one (ATA)?

whatever it is, the backup drive is the only one of the 3 HDs connected by that small cable.

SATA and ATA are completely different here is a picture of a SATA connector
and here is a picture of the ATA connector


In this case dgrycan is correct this is a the communications board of the external closure is bad. This is a typical problem with External hard drives as they are not built for 24x7 use. They are technically built for transporting large amounts of data from one computer to another computer..

Not too mention they are slow transferring data to and from compared to internal drives.

My advice is to open the case and slap the drive into your computer and keep it there. You can back up to the internal drive just as easily as you did with the external drive. If your computer fails the data on the drive is not going to be destroyed. you can always pull the drive out and put it in another computer as well. The only thing I see external drive are good for is ease of access to removing the drive from a system.

But seeing that you got three good years out of the external drive is a good thing. They just are not built to last, as is all computer equipment.

What kind of external drive is it? I will find you a pictorial on opening up the hard drive case in a way so that you don't hurt the drive.

it is an SATA, then. the 2 other HDs are by ATA.

so barring a problem on the motherboard, will swapping out the SATA cable for a new one help?

Originally Posted by BeerMan

it is an SATA, then. the 2 other HDs are by ATA.

so barring a problem on the motherboard, will swapping out the SATA cable for a new one help?

You can try a new cable but I highly doubt that will fix the problem. With the external closures you will be hard pressed to find a cable that will work inside it aside from contacting the manufacture. But assuming the drive is out of warranty you will be told by them it is time to buy a new drive. They usually don't replace internal parts of the external closures and will tell you it will cost you just about the same or close to the same cost of buying a new drive to fix it.

I had a problem with an external drive at my last job and they offered to replace the drive but I would lose any and all data on the current drive. They did offer a data recovery service at $2500 to get the data off of the drive but there was no guarantee we would recover the data. And that drive was only a year and 10 days old.

With the external drives when they go 99% of the time it is the controller card inside the enclosure that goes. Usually from overheating, and the only way to get the data is to replace the controller unit or to pull out the drive and attach it internally to the computer. Which should really only take about 5 minutes to 10 minutes at the most.

If your motherboard doesn't have a SATA connector you can always get a SATA to IDE connector and connect it that way.

IMO it will save you a lot of time and trouble to just open the case and connect the drive inside your computer.