Hi all, My hard drive crashed some time back! :| It doesn't get detected BIOS whatsoever. Would have tried to do a startup repair otherwise!! It's a 500 GB Seagate disk. All I did was this: Returned from work and switched on the desktop. Windows seemed to boot and was stuck in the welcome screen. After a while I had to hard restart my computer and well, the rest is history!! No boot.. Till last night before I shutdown the desktop, my computer has been performing just great - no crashes, no issues, no nothing basically since the day Windows 7 went RTM - yes, I grabbed a copy right on day 1 and Windows 7 has been pretty much a great OS Screeshots: http://img703.imageshack.us/i/61941623.png/ http://img692.imageshack.us/i/43525278.png/

Is your PSU good? One of the power rails may be bad but others still good. Are the drive's data cable and power connector secure? Open the case and check. Move the drive to other connectors to be sure. There are then two possibilities: Most likely, the drive has failed. Get Seatools http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools and test the drive. If it has failed, only a data recovery specialist will be able to recover your data if you do not have backups The motherboard (one or more of the disk controller, data channels, power connectors, etc.) has failed. Try connecting the drive to some other known good device.

This is called a hard drive crash, or failure. The solution is to replace the hard drive. This is a hardware failure and has no relation to Windows 7. If the hard drive fails no operating system can boot up!Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Is your PSU good? One of the power rails may be bad but others still good. Are the drive's data cable and power connector secure? Open the case and check. Move the drive to other connectors to be sure. There are then two possibilities: Most likely, the drive has failed. Get Seatools http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools and test the drive. If it has failed, only a data recovery specialist will be able to recover your data if you do not have backups The motherboard (one or more of the disk controller, data channels, power connectors, etc.) has failed. Try connecting the drive to some other known good device. Yes, PSU is absolutely fine. I am currently using the same desktop to boot up, only this time booting off another hard disk. Tried to connect the crashed HD to another SATA port - no luck there. I've had absolutely no problems with the desktop/HD or anything else for that matter. All this happened out of the blue! Hard disk is probably 2 years old. BTW, how do I test the drive if it ain't getting detected? I've downloaded the Seagate tools. Thanks!

This is called a hard drive crash, or failure. The solution is to replace the hard drive. This is a hardware failure and has no relation to Windows 7. If the hard drive fails no operating system can boot up! Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ” Yes, indeed. I kinda had that feeling. Never blamed Windows 7 as such. Windows 7 has been great to me! Wanted to get an opinion from different people if I can get the drive working or at least recover data, but then it doesn't even get recognized! :|

Sometimes the manufacturer's tools can check a drive when the system cannot. If the power regulation circuitry or drive electronics in the disk has failed the tools will be of no use. The disk will not respond to anything. If the disk is only 2 years old it will probably still be under warranty. The warranty will not include data recovery. The cost of shipping may mean a warranty claim is not economic. There are usually, but not always, warning signs of disk failure in the System Event Log but you have to check the log to see them. Disk errors are only reported to the user when the automatic retries do not succeed.

Sometimes the manufacturer's tools can check a drive when the system cannot. If the power regulation circuitry or drive electronics in the disk has failed the tools will be of no use. The disk will not respond to anything. If the disk is only 2 years old it will probably still be under warranty. The warranty will not include data recovery. The cost of shipping may mean a warranty claim is not economic. There are usually, but not always, warning signs of disk failure in the System Event Log but you have to check the log to see them. Disk errors are only reported to the user when the automatic retries do not succeed. Thanks again! Seagate tools didn't detect the disk! Alas! :( I guess it's completely dead now! Never had a computer/hard disk crash for over 8 years now and hence I NEVER created a backup! Although I did have backup *copies* on an external drive, but not an actual backup strictly speaking. I guess there's a first time for everything. No chance I can check the event log since the disk with the OS crashed. So the reason why the disk crashed is gonna die along with the disc! What a shame! I'll try and see what can be done about the warranty of the disk!

From your description, I know that the hard drive is not recognized by your motherboard. Is that correct? In this case, I suggest you check the hardware with the manufacturers. It should not be related to software problems.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.