Harddrive not being detected

-DeToX- · Post by **-DeToX-** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 4:53 am

Hey all.

Recently I was doing something on my computer and I just unhooked the sata from my hdd, aswell as power. When I plugged it back up it worked, booted into windows. And I retried and now my harddrive isn't being detected all all and since there's nothing to boot from the computer gives me a Diskdrive error saying I have nothing to boot from.

I considered the sata port might be dead. It isn't. Or the sata cable might not work. It is. And I can't hear my harddrive (I think its because its quiet) but when I unplug the power from the back, plug it back in, and start, I hear the harddrive grind so that means its intact and booting up I guess. And another sign its still alive is when the computer is on I can feel of warming up.

It is a Western Digital 250 gb
model: Wd2500js,
make:WD Cavalier SE

Any ideas guys? I have quite a bit of files that benefit me on this computer and it'd help if I didn't lose them but its not needed.

Twinreaper · Post by **Twinreaper** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:44 am

It maybe a resource conflict with your network bus enumerator . I have an Nvidia motherboard, and when I try to conect certain HD's, It wont initialize them properly because of certain resource settings. Two questions for you.

1.) Why would you disconect your HDD anyway?

2.) What chipset do you have? Make/model?

-DeToX- · Post by **-DeToX-** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:31 am

Twinreaper wrote:It maybe a resource conflict with your network bus enumerator . I have an Nvidia motherboard, and when I try to conect certain HD's, It wont initialize them properly because of certain resource settings. Two questions for you.

1.) Why would you disconect your HDD anyway?

2.) What chipset do you have? Make/model?

1. Why is that relevant? If its needed, I needed to connect another device and have no other devices connected.

2. NVIDIA ____ <- I'm at school, ill fill it in later. It worked before though. I dont get why it wouldnt now.

DrXThirst · Post by **DrXThirst** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:01 pm

Sexytime.

-DeToX- · Post by **-DeToX-** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 1:01 pm

I would find that funny but this situation is depressing me.

CrysisFX · Post by **CrysisFX** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 1:17 pm

check your bios settings. usually this can happen because whatever device you plug in instead of your hd required different settings so the bios automatically put them in so you could use it. then it did not reset the settings after you put the old on back in.

CompKronos · Post by **CompKronos** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:00 pm

this happened when i swapped out mobo's two somehow live One service picked up that the hard rive wasn't being detected (??) and made some necessary changes for windows to recognize although this also implies my main windows drive booted up fine. Have you checked in bios to see if it recognizes the drive right, i know its stupid but its always good to check

Xeno2 · Post by **Xeno2** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:45 am

Try resetting the CMOS.
ive had that issue before and it was the CMOS which was the issue.

iBotPeaches · Post by **iBotPeaches** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 8:16 am

Are you on that computer? I never caught that.

So the computer boots up other drives, just not that one sata one?

Happened to me, I switched the little molex power cable for the one in the CD drive and switched them and it worked.

-DeToX- · Post by **-DeToX-** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:14 pm

Weird. The entire computer wouldn't boot up anything.. And I was posting from my phone. It wouldn't find the HDD in CMOS or the BIOS or anything. But the cable and port were intact because I could hook up other SATA devices to that cable/port and it'd be recognized.

After about 300 reboots, for some reason it just decided to recognize my harddrive, but only when it was slanted at a certain position. Apparently before the disc wasn't spinning but the power was getting to it, and the sata port and cable was fine. So I'm not sure why it decided to work so randomly.

Anyways point is, it only worked after about 300 reboots, and being on a certain slant, and now its working at any angle.

I guess my harddrive was dieing but now i've decided if I'm going to unplug it i'm just not going to move it from its current position, or I'll just buy another sata cable, and disable that harddisk next time instead of unhooking it.

Anyways thanks all for your concerns, you guys are a great bunch.

Aumaan Anubis · Post by **Aumaan Anubis** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:56 pm

Great job fixing it, but it sounds like it's on its way out.

I'd recommend backing up those files that benefit you.

OwnZ joO · Post by **OwnZ joO** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:35 pm

Yeah sounds like you got lucky to get it back up this time, I wouldn't test your luck on that again.

-DeToX- · Post by **-DeToX-** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 7:10 am

Yeah I figured I got damn lucky, and if power, and the cable, etc was fine, and the disc wasn't spinning, its bound to die, so the second it booted up I backed up my entire C:\ drive lol.

Hopefully it stays this way but if not, tough luck. Thanks guys.

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:35 pm

I bet I know what you were plugging into your SATA port.

bcnipod · Post by **bcnipod** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:13 pm

If you have a mac around, then you could use DiskWarrior.