[zombklr092]

Hi everyone,

My PC went nuts today when I turned on the computer. There are the details specs of my computer:

Motherboard make and model: ASUS M2N
OS: Windows 7 Professional SP1
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB

Does it caused by frequent powering off and on the motherboard or does it indicate that my hard disk has failed? I tried to remove the hard drive from my ASUS M2N motherboard and plugged it into my other computer (which is I'm posting this post today from my other computer), when I'm booting up from my other computer (not ASUS M2N) it doesn't recognise the hard drive and it shows media boot failure. This tells me that my hard drive has been failed.

When I'm booting up the normal Windows 7 CD (not the recovery CD), it shows up the unusual blue screen containing error message saying: "*** STOP: 0x000000A5 (0x0001000A, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)". Also I tried to boot up Hiren's Boot CD, it shows an error message. If that was caused by failed hard disk, are there any ways to retrieve my files from the failed hard disk, if so then what software would you suggest to retrieve my files from my failed hard drive?

I would appreciate it if you answer this post, thanks.

Edited by zombklr092, 23 April 2013 - 04:11 AM.

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Try this. Hope this procedure will help you.


1) Inspect the Hard Drive For Damage:

• Remove the hard drive from the computer or device.
• Examine it carefully for 'hot spots' or other damage on the external controller board.
• Check if there are broken parts.
• Move it gently from side to side and then front to back. Listen for metallic rattling noises.
Don't be too rough; the drive's heads are probably loose if there is a rattling sound.
• If there is rattling, decide how important the data is. Data recovery is extremely expensive.
If you need your data regardless of the cost, contact a data-recovery specialist.
If not, warranty or replace the hard disk.

2) Replace the Cable:

• Replace the cable. Plug the hard drive in with a new cable that you know works and try again.
Note that an IDE drive will need a flat-ribbon cable.

3) Switch Drive Pin Settings:

• If you have a PATA (IDE/EIDE) drive, switch drive pin settings.
• If it was “slave” or “cable select,” set it to “master.”
• Plug it in alone without any other device on that port and try again.


4) Try other IDs and/or another PCI Controller:

• Try other IDs and/or another PCI controller and try again. If you don't have another controller,
a PCI card that adds ports to your computer, just change the ID.

5) External Drive Adapter:

• Plug it into an external drive adapter or external drive case (i.e. USB) if you have one.
• If it does not spin up, try pulsing the power to the drive by turning on and off the
external power to the drive motor until it does start to spin.


6) Connect the Drive Into Another Computer:

• Connect the drive into another computer and try again. If this works, it is possible that
the motherboard is at fault and not your hard disk.

7) Dislodge the Actuators:

• Try to dislodge the actuators.
• Power the drive down.
• Slap it on a table on one of its side edges. Do this fairly gently – perhaps hard enough to crack an egg.
If the fault is the actuators that actually move the head back and forth this might
break it free enough to actually become "unparked" and hopefully allow you to recover your data
once the drive will spin up.
• Note that if you do this with the drive spinning, it may destroy the drive.

[juliadexter]

Try this. Hope this procedure will help you.


1) Inspect the Hard Drive For Damage:

• Remove the hard drive from the computer or device.
• Examine it carefully for 'hot spots' or other damage on the external controller board.
• Check if there are broken parts.
• Move it gently from side to side and then front to back. Listen for metallic rattling noises.
Don't be too rough; the drive's heads are probably loose if there is a rattling sound.
• If there is rattling, decide how important the data is. Data recovery is extremely expensive.
If you need your data regardless of the cost, contact a data-recovery specialist.
If not, warranty or replace the hard disk.

2) Replace the Cable:

• Replace the cable. Plug the hard drive in with a new cable that you know works and try again.
Note that an IDE drive will need a flat-ribbon cable.

3) Switch Drive Pin Settings:

• If you have a PATA (IDE/EIDE) drive, switch drive pin settings.
• If it was “slave” or “cable select,” set it to “master.”
• Plug it in alone without any other device on that port and try again.


4) Try other IDs and/or another PCI Controller:

• Try other IDs and/or another PCI controller and try again. If you don't have another controller,
a PCI card that adds ports to your computer, just change the ID.

5) External Drive Adapter:

• Plug it into an external drive adapter or external drive case (i.e. USB) if you have one.
• If it does not spin up, try pulsing the power to the drive by turning on and off the
external power to the drive motor until it does start to spin.


6) Connect the Drive Into Another Computer:

• Connect the drive into another computer and try again. If this works, it is possible that
the motherboard is at fault and not your hard disk.

7) Dislodge the Actuators:

• Try to dislodge the actuators.
• Power the drive down.
• Slap it on a table on one of its side edges. Do this fairly gently – perhaps hard enough to crack an egg.
If the fault is the actuators that actually move the head back and forth this might
break it free enough to actually become "unparked" and hopefully allow you to recover your data
once the drive will spin up.
• Note that if you do this with the drive spinning, it may destroy the drive.

[Wolfeymole]

I tried to remove the hard drive from my ASUS M2N motherboard and plugged it into my other computer (which is I'm posting this post today from my other computer), when I'm booting up from my other computer (not ASUS M2N) it doesn't recognise the hard drive and it shows media boot failure

If you have set the WD 500GB as a Primary boot hard disk in whatever machine then it will not work for the simple reason that the hardware parameters on the WD do not match the system hardware on the other machine.

The WD will only recognise the Asus system.

Having said that however this WD hard drive does indeed appear to be dead.

Leave the hard drive out of the Asus machine temporarily and boot up, you will of course have a "Hard drive not found" or "System disk not found" error message.

Leave the computer in this condition for a while and see if it shuts down because I am trying to determine if this is an overheating issue rather than a dead hard drive.

P.S. With the utmost respect for Julia Dexters input in part 7 please refrain from banging any hard drives on any surface.

[Veeg]

If all else fails you can try this...here is a tutorial i wrote a while back and has a 50/50 chance of working. In my case it worked just fine..
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before you go and spend (some quotes) $1000 for HDD data retrieval,you could try this..!

First you can try this.... Hard Drive Diagnostics... http://www.carrona.org/hddiag.html to give you more info on what's wrong with your HDD...

NOTE: In the end you have a 50-50 chance this will work.. Also this procedure is not for a SSD...!

After some research and some verification from 2 very knowledgeable PC tech's,i tried this.. Remember patience is key here....

That click you hear is the read head snapping back to the rest position. If you get unlucky, there is a mechanical failure. The freeze may bind the arm long enough to grab data, even if just a few MB at a time. The drive will heat up quickly. If the actuator is not faulting at the controller board this may work..

Now to the procedure.....

Put the HDD into a Deep freezer ( temp needs to be at least at 0-F to -40F) for 24 hours,then when it is ready have a USB adapter ready to go and your back disk/HDD as well,one ice pack and towel.. (Be Quick) wrapped the HDD with towel with ice pack (have HDD in question powered up). Then you may have to wait a hour for the HDD to warm up to work.. After about a hour or 2 take towel and ice pack off and if all possible place an external fan for more cooling or get a fresh ice pack to cool it right back down.. During this time you should be transferring data.

NOTE: It has been mentioned you could use dry ice to cool down/ freeze your HDD until time to retrieve your data..

Important info:
I suppose an external sata connection would work and the fan came into play because the ice pack had thawed out after 2 hours.. Also for faster data transfer i just use move or send to than copy when i could. You may have to create a file (under a different name) for some data if you have more than one profile like i did.. A note here you may get a error will not initialize or MBR is not working this may be because the HDD is still to cold,which i got trying to use it straight out of the freezer. Just keep trying until the HDD starts working.. I could have bought a new actuator board for the HDD but it was as much as a new HDD and not guarantee to work..

NOTE: Obviously if your HDD has external damage or severely damaged in other ways this method may not work at all!


And quote:

The BEST method is to use the mfgr provided boot CD. There should be a clone feature there.

Known issue:
The mfgr's are consolidating, so it can be a challenge to locate the proper CD.

Also, cloning will copy over file system (logical) errors. These are what MS chkdsk resolves. MS chkdsk is NOT a physical repair tool. Run chkdsk on new drive after cloning. The old drive probably corrupted the file system.

NEVER run chkdsk on a drive suspected of physical failure.

Reminder:
Every hard drive, factory new, contains physical errors. Every hard drive has a tolerance value for these bad sectors. These are controlled/managed in the drive's firmware and Windows CANNOT see them. Bad sectors are visible to Windows only after the tolerance is exceeded.

[zombklr092]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the reply of this post, my WD Caviar Blue 500GB hard drive has now worked correctly because of the frequent powering on and off via PSU. There was no physical and mechanical damage on my hard drive, and the sectors of my hard drive has remain undamaged, I regularly defrag my hard drive to stop spreading data across the sectors.

I found out today (now) my computer (ASUS M2N) motherboard recognised my WD Caviar Blue hard drive and it successfully booted up the Windows 7 OS without any problems. Just to mention @Wolfeymole on the reply post that my other computer (MSI MS-7142) doesn't recognise my WD Caviar Blue hard drive, you're correct. To the other replies of this post, it wasn't relate to the other HDD issues, but thank you for the ideas and procedures for recovering the failed hard drive when it does has sector problems.

[Wolfeymole]

You're welcome mate.