Today, when switching on my machine I noticed a long delay whilst booting up. I then noticed that my WD HDD had disappeared from my system. I tried WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows. This too could not detect the WD Drive.

I then tried the DOS version, which DID detect the drive. The Quick Test took a while before starting but then the progress bar appeared, ran to the end and disappeared again. After several more minutes the following message appeared:

"Please Contact Technical Support and Report the following Error:
Seek not complete
Error / Status Code: 0108"

The drive is spinning up OK. The drive is under warranty and WD are sending a replacement.

Is there any way of getting the data off the old drive in its present state? Or perhaps 'patching up' the firmware or hardware to get the data off?

Let me know if anyone can shed light on the problem

Thanks
Jason

If data is not critical RMA it. If it is, contact a pro in your area, like Pcimage from this forum. It wouldn't be for free but it's a trustable solution. Otherwise invest 10'000 £ on PC3000 UDMA.

The drive is used for large files - (mainly TV recordings) and backups, so the data is not 'critical' but it would save a lot of hassle if I can recover any of it.

Do I take it that these particular symptoms and error code are likely to be a result of a firmware corruption rather than a mechanical issue?

What do you expect from cheap drives?

Thanks, but that comment won't help me now - I bought the drive nearly three years ago!

What drives / models do you recommend as being the most robust?

I use SAMSUNG but also there are the SEAGATE EXTREME series. It depends on what do you want to spend. And you can have availability problems.

Anyway no drive will survive a fall from your desktop to the floor, crap power supply or tinkering or repeated power interruptions/reset while writing, overheat etc.