WD 40GB hard drive unreadable? Help needed!

I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error message
of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8 on a
restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of Safe
Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to hit F2 or
F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The lights on the
back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on startup.

The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting the
system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I have
never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am just
guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears inputs
are minimal.

I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and the
Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found. An
attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk Found.

I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged it
into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device. But it
did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen in My
Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and checking the
properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size. When I would
remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and then plug it
back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it received power. It
spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets warm, so it is apparently
spinning away inside there.

I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave. No
change.

So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other way
to see the drive and get data off of it?

I vote for toast.

Kevin wrote:
> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
> 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error message
> of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8 on a
> restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of Safe
> Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to hit F2 or
> F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The lights on the
> back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on startup.
>
> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting the
> system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I have
> never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am just
> guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears inputs
> are minimal.
>
> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and the
> Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found. An
> attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk Found.
>
> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged it
> into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device. But it
> did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen in My
> Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and checking the
> properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size. When I would
> remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and then plug it
> back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it received power. It
> spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets warm, so it is apparently
> spinning away inside there.
>
> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave. No
> change.
>
> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other way
> to see the drive and get data off of it?
>
>

Before I say toast, put the hard drive in the freezer over night and
then try it in the pc again. If it works, immediately take the files
off of it that you need as I don't know if it will reboot normally
again.






On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:17:52 -0700, "Kevin" <>
wrote:

>I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
>4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error message
>of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8 on a
>restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of Safe
>Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to hit F2 or
>F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The lights on the
>back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on startup.
>
>The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting the
>system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I have
>never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am just
>guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears inputs
>are minimal.
>
>I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and the
>Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found. An
>attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk Found.
>
>I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged it
>into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device. But it
>did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen in My
>Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and checking the
>properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size. When I would
>remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and then plug it
>back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it received power. It
>spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets warm, so it is apparently
>spinning away inside there.
>
>I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave. No
>change.
>
>So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other way
>to see the drive and get data off of it?
>

Hi!

At this point, the drive is probably toast. For the next time, invest in a
backup device, such as another hard drive in an external cabinet. They do
cost money, but the price is cheap if you're making regular backups to it
and find that you suddenly need one. Words don't describe how glad you'll be
if this ever happens. Trust me.

Power the drive up and see if it seems to come online normally. You should
hear a smooth spinup, some soft clicks as the drive initializes and then
nothing but spinning. If you hear loud repetitive clicking, nothing at all
or the drive just spins down, you can bet that something internal to it has
failed. Putting it in the freezer as another poster suggested might work. If
it does, hurry to get your data off of it. You might wish to put it in the
USB enclosure and freeze that entire unit with the power and USB cables
connected. That way you could keep the drive cold while getting data off of
it. Let it get down to temperature before you power it up.

If the drive does seem to start up normally, you're probably looking at a
failure elsewhere on the disk or a file system problem. A manufacturer
supplied disk diagnostic or data recovery utility (such as GRC's SpinRite,
which does work quite well if a drive isn't too far gone*) can help a disk
that is still able to run. Beware of utilities that simply "give up" on
unreadable data and toss it away. This can leave holes in your files.

For file system damage (which is unlikely, as the drive should still be
visible in system setup and as a boot device), a "disk editor" or the file
system repair utilities that come with your OS might help. A disk editor
software program can give you a look at the raw contents of a disk that is
functional but whose file system is so trashed that it isn't recognized by
the operating system or its file system repair/check tools.

Finally, if you are really desperate, you can try to buy a known working
drive from eBay or other secondhand equipment sellers. If you do that, try
to find a drive that matches yours as closely as possible. Form factor and
firmware level are important. When you find one, you might be able to swap
the controller boards from one drive to another. This may not work, and if
it does, there will be enough differences between drives (defect tables,
startup parameters, etc) that read errors and difficulty will be inevitable.
Or you can contact a professional data recovery service, which probably has
the greatest odds of success out of any procedure mentioned here. These cost
lots of $$$$, however.

(*I say this as nothing more than a very pleased customer of the Gibson
Research Corporation. I have no affiliation with that company or any of its
employees. I have seen more than a few drives that were simply too far gone
to save, but for many, it was able to perform significant if not total
recovery of the data on an ailing drive. It even works on floppy diskettes
if you're still using any. It also works great to help "certify" new and
unproven drives. http://www.grc.com/)

William

Try the freezer trick, but don't try to reboot using that drive.
Instead, try the drive as a 2nd drive in another PC. All you want to do
here is recover files, and rebooting results in writes to the hard
drive, which reduces your chances of data recovery.


RnR wrote:
> Before I say toast, put the hard drive in the freezer over night and
> then try it in the pc again. If it works, immediately take the files
> off of it that you need as I don't know if it will reboot normally
> again.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:17:52 -0700, "Kevin" <>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
>> 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error message
>> of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8 on a
>> restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of Safe
>> Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to hit F2 or
>> F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The lights on the
>> back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on startup.
>>
>> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting the
>> system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I have
>> never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am just
>> guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears inputs
>> are minimal.
>>
>> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and the
>> Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found. An
>> attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk Found.
>>
>> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged it
>> into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device. But it
>> did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen in My
>> Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and checking the
>> properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size. When I would
>> remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and then plug it
>> back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it received power. It
>> spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets warm, so it is apparently
>> spinning away inside there.
>>
>> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave. No
>> change.
>>
>> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other way
>> to see the drive and get data off of it?
>>
>

"Kevin" <> wrote in message
news:46b943d7$0$509$...
> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
> 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error message
> of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8 on a
> restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of Safe
> Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to hit F2
> or F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The lights
> on the back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on
> startup.
>
> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting
> the system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I
> have never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am
> just guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears
> inputs are minimal.
>
> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and the
> Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found. An
> attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk
> Found.
>
> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged it
> into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device. But it
> did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen in My
> Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and checking the
> properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size. When I would
> remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and then plug it
> back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it received power. It
> spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets warm, so it is
> apparently spinning away inside there.
>
> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave.
> No change.
>
> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other
> way to see the drive and get data off of it?
>


Nice job attempting to save the day.

From everything you've done and especially since disk manager won't even
recognize the volume, she's taken the dirt nap, imo.

And as someone else pointed out, replace the drive and purchase an external
USB drive for buture backup - they're very inexpensive anymore.


Stew

"S.Lewis" <> wrote in message
news:K5hui.250$...
>
> "Kevin" <> wrote in message
> news:46b943d7$0$509$...
>> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
>> 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error
>> message of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8
>> on a restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of
>> Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to
>> hit F2 or F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The
>> lights on the back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep on
>> startup.
>>
>> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting
>> the system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I
>> have never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am
>> just guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it appears
>> inputs are minimal.
>>
>> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and
>> the Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be found.
>> An attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No Hard Disk
>> Found.
>>
>> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged
>> it into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device.
>> But it did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't seen
>> in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and
>> checking the properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size.
>> When I would remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and
>> then plug it back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it
>> received power. It spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets
>> warm, so it is apparently spinning away inside there.
>>
>> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave.
>> No change.
>>
>> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other
>> way to see the drive and get data off of it?
>>
>
>
> Nice job attempting to save the day.
>
> From everything you've done and especially since disk manager won't even
> recognize the volume, she's taken the dirt nap, imo.
>
> And as someone else pointed out, replace the drive and purchase an
> external USB drive for buture backup - they're very inexpensive anymore.
>
>
> Stew

Thanks to everyone for the great replies! And thanks to you, Stew, for the
help. I figured it was DOA but wanted to see what other opinions were out
there. As a absolute last resort I'll stick the drive in the freezer and
give it one last try but I won't hold my breath for a good result. And,
yes, I've already given my friend a quick lesson in keeping his data backed
up. Fortunately, there is nothing really critical on the drive, just some
photos and a few emails. Thanks to all.

Update --- I stuck the drive in the freezer for 30 minutes. It was very
cold after that time in my freezer and I tried to access the drive again.
Nothing. So it is very dead. Thanks again to all who offered some good
advice and information!

"Kevin" <> wrote in message
news:46b9e08a$0$10303$...
>
> "S.Lewis" <> wrote in message
> news:K5hui.250$...
>>
>> "Kevin" <> wrote in message
>> news:46b943d7$0$509$...
>>> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell Dimension
>>> 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic error
>>> message of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen. Hitting F8
>>> on a restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot options of
>>> Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I was able to
>>> hit F2 or F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup screen. The
>>> lights on the back of the tower are all green. There is a single beep
>>> on startup.
>>>
>>> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting
>>> the system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I
>>> have never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am
>>> just guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it
>>> appears inputs are minimal.
>>>
>>> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and
>>> the Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be
>>> found. An attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No
>>> Hard Disk Found.
>>>
>>> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged
>>> it into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device.
>>> But it did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't
>>> seen in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and
>>> checking the properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size.
>>> When I would remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it and
>>> then plug it back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it
>>> received power. It spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets
>>> warm, so it is apparently spinning away inside there.
>>>
>>> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to Slave.
>>> No change.
>>>
>>> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other
>>> way to see the drive and get data off of it?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Nice job attempting to save the day.
>>
>> From everything you've done and especially since disk manager won't even
>> recognize the volume, she's taken the dirt nap, imo.
>>
>> And as someone else pointed out, replace the drive and purchase an
>> external USB drive for buture backup - they're very inexpensive anymore.
>>
>>
>> Stew
>
> Thanks to everyone for the great replies! And thanks to you, Stew, for
> the help. I figured it was DOA but wanted to see what other opinions were
> out there. As a absolute last resort I'll stick the drive in the freezer
> and give it one last try but I won't hold my breath for a good result.
> And, yes, I've already given my friend a quick lesson in keeping his data
> backed up. Fortunately, there is nothing really critical on the drive,
> just some photos and a few emails. Thanks to all.
>

"Kevin" <> wrote in message
news:46ba4bef$0$505$...
> Update --- I stuck the drive in the freezer for 30 minutes. It was very
> cold after that time in my freezer and I tried to access the drive again.
> Nothing. So it is very dead. Thanks again to all who offered some good
> advice and information!
>
> "Kevin" <> wrote in message
> news:46b9e08a$0$10303$...
>>
>> "S.Lewis" <> wrote in message
>> news:K5hui.250$...
>>>
>>> "Kevin" <> wrote in message
>>> news:46b943d7$0$509$...
>>>> I'm looking at a Western Digital 40GB hard drive out of a Dell
>>>> Dimension 4400. The system went belly up on a friend with the cryptic
>>>> error message of "Boot Failure: System Halted" on a black screen.
>>>> Hitting F8 on a restart did not get me to the expected screen, the boot
>>>> options of Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration and so on. When I
>>>> was able to hit F2 or F12 on a restart I was able to see the BIOS setup
>>>> screen. The lights on the back of the tower are all green. There is a
>>>> single beep on startup.
>>>>
>>>> The hard drive did not show, in the BIOS setup, as a device for booting
>>>> the system. Only the CD-ROM drive and "Removable Device" appeared. I
>>>> have never seen that before. With the BIOS version of A03, which I am
>>>> just guessing was the original BIOS for this system from 2002, it
>>>> appears inputs are minimal.
>>>>
>>>> I attempted a repair of Windows after setting the CD drive to boot and
>>>> the Windows installation applet told me that no hard disk could be
>>>> found. An attempt to fully reinstall Windows got the same result: No
>>>> Hard Disk Found.
>>>>
>>>> I took the drive out, stuck it in an external usb drive box and plugged
>>>> it into my laptop at home. It was seen as a USB Mass Storage Device.
>>>> But it did not show up in Disk Management. And, of course, it isn't
>>>> seen in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Device Manager showed it, and
>>>> checking the properties, it shows it as Unreadable with no volume size.
>>>> When I would remove the drive (Safely Remove Hardware) and unplug it
>>>> and then plug it back in, the drive would make a single "click" when it
>>>> received power. It spins up and the outside of the drive housing gets
>>>> warm, so it is apparently spinning away inside there.
>>>>
>>>> I moved the jumpers from Cable Select (Dell Default) to Master to
>>>> Slave. No change.
>>>>
>>>> So, what do you guys think? Is this drive toast or is there some other
>>>> way to see the drive and get data off of it?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nice job attempting to save the day.
>>>
>>> From everything you've done and especially since disk manager won't even
>>> recognize the volume, she's taken the dirt nap, imo.
>>>
>>> And as someone else pointed out, replace the drive and purchase an
>>> external USB drive for buture backup - they're very inexpensive anymore.
>>>
>>>
>>> Stew
>>
>> Thanks to everyone for the great replies! And thanks to you, Stew, for
>> the help. I figured it was DOA but wanted to see what other opinions
>> were out there. As a absolute last resort I'll stick the drive in the
>> freezer and give it one last try but I won't hold my breath for a good
>> result. And, yes, I've already given my friend a quick lesson in keeping
>> his data backed up. Fortunately, there is nothing really critical on the
>> drive, just some photos and a few emails. Thanks to all.
>>
>
>


You did what you could Kevin. It happens:

HD Tune: WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0 Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 174 47 51 870 Failed
(03) Spin Up Time 103 96 21 5600 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 99 99 40 1571 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 191 191 140 143 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 91 91 0 6643 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 99 99 0 1569 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 167 167 0 33 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 165 165 0 703 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 1 1 0 3921 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 253 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 1 1 51 4964 Failed

Power On Time : 6643
Health Status : Failed


-Stew

Hi!

> Power On Time : 6643

!!!!!

That drive didn't last long at all. Is there a story behind it, or did it
just drop out unexpectedly?

I've usually had impeccable service from WD hard drives. My oldest working
examples were a 3GB drive that had run almost 24/7 and a slightly newer 8GB
unit with the same kind of runtime. The 3GB had some trouble with stiction
on spinup but otherwise was flawless. The 8GB unit never had a problem. It
took a basement flood in late 2004 to break them, which kind of annoyed me.
I really did want to find out how long they'd last.

The 200GB SATA WD drive in my Dim8300 had a remapping event recently, but
it's only done so once and seems to be stable. Interestingly enough, of the
1603 drives in the SpeedFan HDDstatus report web site's database, no other
drive had the same firmware as mine.

William