Yaaaakk!! HD crashed? Anything I can do?

[Ruahrc]

So I went out today, leaving my computer on. Normally, when I am away for 2 (maybe 3) hours, my computer will go to sleep, and I can just wake it up when I get back.

But today, I got back home and my computer wouldn't wake up. I tried to reboot, but it enters an infinite reboot cycle just as it should reach the "loading Windows XP" screen. What the heck happened?

Luckily, I have a backup drive which is only a month (maybe two, max) old- so I CAN get back to where I was, but I installed a lot, like 5+GB, of Flight Simulator items during that time (again, I luckily backed up the installs onto DVDs) and would like to avoid the redo if possible.

So anyways right now I'm running off of my backup (which has yet again earned it's weight in gold) and have my "dead" drive hooked up as secondary. Here's where the trouble is: I try to browse the secondary drive, and it says "Drive D is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?". So apparently something went wrong with the drive? Are there any utilities that I can use to try and repair my broken drive or should I just bite the bullet and copy my backup over- being thankful I have what I have already?

Both drives are WD- the backup is a 20GB 5400rpm the main drive is a 30GB 7200rpm. I have the latest version of WD's lifeguard tools on diskette (it's what I use for backup), I will take a look at that later.

I have to laugh at the irony of it all- I went out to go to BestBuy and while I was there I was like "man I should get a new HD, my current one is running low on space" hehe.

Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ruahrc

[whitebeard21]

A system that works sometimes unless you had a head crash. Freeze the drive for at least 4 hours then plug it in and immediately back it up.
Freezing causes the bearings in the motor to loosen and it works until they warm up.

[Ruahrc]

freeze as in like in the freezer?

It doesn't sound like a head crash, the drive spins up just fine and sounds completely normal, it just doesn't read

Ruahrc

[Foggy]

Have you tried the fittness utility from your HDD mfgr?

[Ruahrc]

Just ran the Data lifeguard diagnostics from WD. Strangely enough everything came up as normal- but my drive still no worky.

Right now I'm just re-building my HD to where it was before it crashed, then I'll transfer it all over and overwrite my 30GB drive.

Ruahrc

[whitebeard21]

try a new ide cable. If all else fails if you have another hdd of the same model you can try swapping the pc boards.

[Ruahrc]

it's not the IDE cable- I am using the same one right now on my backup. It's not a big deal at all- this is what I keep my backup around for. I hardly lost anything at all (I can only think of 1 file) when it crashed. I guess this falls under the category of "stuff happens"

Ruahrc