My daugther's hard disk become unallocated !
in [Hardware]
|
Prev: Damaged Hardware!
Next: i845G and 1440x900
From: Sydney on 24 Mar 2010 04:12 The PC has 2 hard disks. the boot one was created in november with a fresh windows home XP . It replaced the old Hitachi disk which was very slow. The Hitachi was installed as a slave primary to access the data. Last week, my daugther asked me to retrieve her personal contacts which were on the Hitachi. So I had to connect it as primary master and booted on it. That worked fine. When returning to the actual boot, the Hitachi disappeared and Windows sees it as unallocated. I suppect my USB memory key as the culprit. Are the data lost ? What to do know ? Please help.
From: Petrus Tax on 24 Mar 2010 09:58 Hello: This may be a more or less mechanical issue: jumper settings? cables tight? correct cables? HTH and good luck! Petrus "Sydney" <kayzen(a)free.fr> wrote in message news:4ba9c95e$0$20659$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... > The PC has 2 hard disks. the boot one was created in november with a fresh > windows home XP . It replaced the old Hitachi disk which was very slow. > The Hitachi was installed as a slave primary to access the data. > Last week, my daugther asked me to retrieve her personal contacts which > were on the Hitachi. So I had to connect it as primary master and booted > on it. That worked fine. > When returning to the actual boot, the Hitachi disappeared and Windows > sees it as unallocated. > I suppect my USB memory key as the culprit. > Are the data lost ? > What to do know ? > Please help.
From: Sydney on 24 Mar 2010 10:46 No it is not All HDs are with cable select. Thanks anyhow "Petrus Tax" <petrustax(a)earthlink.net> a �crit dans le message de groupe de discussion : iJadnWiF6pg7hzfWnZ2dnUVZ_u6dnZ2d(a)earthlink.com... > Hello: > This may be a more or less mechanical issue: jumper settings? cables > tight? correct cables? > HTH and good luck! > Petrus > > "Sydney" <kayzen(a)free.fr> wrote in message > news:4ba9c95e$0$20659$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... >> The PC has 2 hard disks. the boot one was created in november with a >> fresh windows home XP . It replaced the old Hitachi disk which was very >> slow. >> The Hitachi was installed as a slave primary to access the data. >> Last week, my daugther asked me to retrieve her personal contacts which >> were on the Hitachi. So I had to connect it as primary master and booted >> on it. That worked fine. >> When returning to the actual boot, the Hitachi disappeared and Windows >> sees it as unallocated. >> I suppect my USB memory key as the culprit. >> Are the data lost ? >> What to do know ? >> Please help. > >
From: Paul on 24 Mar 2010 11:51 Sydney wrote: > No it is not All HDs are with cable select. Thanks anyhow I assume this is a desktop computer ? First step, is to enter the BIOS and verify that the BIOS sees two disk drives. There may be an IDE setup screen, which reports the detected hard drives and optical drive. If the ASCII text name of the drive is distorted, then you'd know there was a communications problem on the cable. The BIOS screen shows the results of the minimum effort to talk to the drive. If you're not seeing the disk in the BIOS, there is no point in working to find it in Windows. You'd review your cable setup and jumpers, to see if you missed something. Do both drives have power cables plugged in ? Is the power connector seated ? Are there any burned pins on the power connector ? Verify that if there are two drives on the cable, they're Master:Slave or CS:CS (and that the cable is 80 wire if CS:CS is chosen). If the drives are both detected in the BIOS, then you can use some OS to work on them. I use a Linux LiveCD, such as Ubuntu or Knoppix, to work on Windows disks. Linux can now read NTFS and FAT32, so it is no problem to work there. If they're visible in the BIOS, your next stop could be Disk Management in Windows. If you don't know how to find it, basically just run diskmgmt.msc . If you see two Disk entries but no partitions on the second disk, then it could be that the MBR (Master Boot Sector, that holds the four primary partition entries) is corrupted. The "TestDisk" program is an example of a free utility that can examine a disk and try to reconstruct the MBR. In the process of doing that, the program will be doing lots of reads on the disk, so it would give you some idea whether the disk is dying or not, just based on whether any errors are thrown or not. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk TestDisk isn't likely to be the solution to your problem. I find about 50% of the time, if I were to accept what it found, it would mess up the disk. It requires knowledge from the user, as to what it finds is reasonable or not. For example, if you know the disk had three partitions (C:, D:, hidden recovery) and it didn't find three entries, you'd know better than to accept its findings. In any case, at least work up to the step of using diskmgmt.msc to prove the disk is detected. If the disk is not there, you have to work on getting the hardware to access it, before any more progress can be made. If a disk has an internal failure, they're designed to not respond in the event of failure. I disagree with the design philosophy, but there it is. For example, some disks "disappear", when a defect table used in firmware overflows. So in some cases, the disk dying, is not mechanical or logical, and is a firmware bug. At least some firmware inspired bugs can easily be fixed by data recovery companies. In other cases, your own senses can give you an idea what happened to the drive. I had an old 2GB drive, and one day when I turned on the computer, I heard a loud "sproing" sound. That was the head assembly getting snagged in the landing ramp and being torn to shreds. When you hear a noise like that, you don't need a copy of TestDisk :-( Paul > > "Petrus Tax" <petrustax(a)earthlink.net> a �crit dans le message de > groupe de discussion : iJadnWiF6pg7hzfWnZ2dnUVZ_u6dnZ2d(a)earthlink.com... >> Hello: >> This may be a more or less mechanical issue: jumper settings? cables >> tight? correct cables? >> HTH and good luck! >> Petrus >> >> "Sydney" <kayzen(a)free.fr> wrote in message >> news:4ba9c95e$0$20659$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... >>> The PC has 2 hard disks. the boot one was created in november with a >>> fresh windows home XP . It replaced the old Hitachi disk which was >>> very slow. >>> The Hitachi was installed as a slave primary to access the data. >>> Last week, my daugther asked me to retrieve her personal contacts >>> which were on the Hitachi. So I had to connect it as primary master >>> and booted on it. That worked fine. >>> When returning to the actual boot, the Hitachi disappeared and >>> Windows sees it as unallocated. >>> I suppect my USB memory key as the culprit. >>> Are the data lost ? >>> What to do know ? >>> Please help. >> >>
From: Sydney on 25 Mar 2010 03:39
"Paul" <nospam(a)needed.com> a �crit dans le message de groupe de discussion : hodcdj$jm8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > Sydney wrote: >> No it is not All HDs are with cable select. Thanks anyhow > > I assume this is a desktop computer ? > > First step, is to enter the BIOS and verify that the BIOS sees > two disk drives. There may be an IDE setup screen, which reports > the detected hard drives and optical drive. If the ASCII text > name of the drive is distorted, then you'd know there was a > communications problem on the cable. The BIOS screen shows the > results of the minimum effort to talk to the drive. > > If you're not seeing the disk in the BIOS, there is no point > in working to find it in Windows. > > You'd review your cable setup and jumpers, to see if you missed > something. Do both drives have power cables plugged in ? Is > the power connector seated ? Are there any burned pins on the > power connector ? Verify that if there are two drives on the > cable, they're Master:Slave or CS:CS (and that the cable is > 80 wire if CS:CS is chosen). > > If the drives are both detected in the BIOS, then you can use some > OS to work on them. I use a Linux LiveCD, such as Ubuntu or Knoppix, to > work on Windows disks. Linux can now read NTFS and FAT32, so it is no > problem to work there. > > If they're visible in the BIOS, your next stop could be > Disk Management in Windows. If you don't know how to find it, > basically just run diskmgmt.msc . If you see two Disk entries > but no partitions on the second disk, then it could be that > the MBR (Master Boot Sector, that holds the four primary partition > entries) is corrupted. > > The "TestDisk" program is an example of a free utility that can > examine a disk and try to reconstruct the MBR. In the process of > doing that, the program will be doing lots of reads on the disk, > so it would give you some idea whether the disk is dying or not, > just based on whether any errors are thrown or not. > > http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk > > TestDisk isn't likely to be the solution to your problem. I find > about 50% of the time, if I were to accept what it found, it would > mess up the disk. It requires knowledge from the user, as to what it > finds is reasonable or not. For example, if you know the disk had > three partitions (C:, D:, hidden recovery) and it didn't find three > entries, you'd know better than to accept its findings. > > In any case, at least work up to the step of using diskmgmt.msc > to prove the disk is detected. If the disk is not there, you have > to work on getting the hardware to access it, before any more progress > can be made. > > If a disk has an internal failure, they're designed to not respond > in the event of failure. I disagree with the design philosophy, but there > it is. For example, some disks "disappear", when a defect table used > in firmware overflows. So in some cases, the disk dying, is not > mechanical or logical, and is a firmware bug. At least some firmware > inspired bugs can easily be fixed by data recovery companies. > > In other cases, your own senses can give you an idea what happened to > the drive. I had an old 2GB drive, and one day when I turned on the > computer, I heard a loud "sproing" sound. That was the head assembly > getting snagged in the landing ramp and being torn to shreds. When > you hear a noise like that, you don't need a copy of TestDisk :-( > > Paul > >> >> "Petrus Tax" <petrustax(a)earthlink.net> a �crit dans le message de groupe >> de discussion : iJadnWiF6pg7hzfWnZ2dnUVZ_u6dnZ2d(a)earthlink.com... >>> Hello: >>> This may be a more or less mechanical issue: jumper settings? cables >>> tight? correct cables? >>> HTH and good luck! >>> Petrus >>> >>> "Sydney" <kayzen(a)free.fr> wrote in message >>> news:4ba9c95e$0$20659$426a74cc(a)news.free.fr... >>>> The PC has 2 hard disks. the boot one was created in november with a >>>> fresh windows home XP . It replaced the old Hitachi disk which was >>>> very slow. >>>> The Hitachi was installed as a slave primary to access the data. >>>> Last week, my daugther asked me to retrieve her personal contacts which >>>> were on the Hitachi. So I had to connect it as primary master and >>>> booted on it. That worked fine. >>>> When returning to the actual boot, the Hitachi disappeared and Windows >>>> sees it as unallocated. >>>> I suppect my USB memory key as the culprit. >>>> Are the data lost ? >>>> What to do know ? >>>> Please help. >>> Paul, Thanks for this thorough answer and comments. This is a lot of care. The Bios sees two disks. Cables setup and jumpers are correct; Windows disk manager sees a 137 Go not allocated disk (it is 160 Go ) and starts the init and conversion assistant for the disk.I refused that; Windows explorer nor disk defrag do not see the disk; Ubuntu 9.04 (Linux ) sees a 8.2 Go disk with 814 bad sectors. It realocated 809 sectors. No change in windows behavior after that. Should I run TestDisk under Ubuntu since windows does see the disk ? your advice is highly appreciated |