No drive detected

[scuzzman]

Hey, again. So, I'm running mhdd off of a usb (see post for success: mhdd-onto-usb-please-t23257.html). Now, I am running mhdd on an old dell latitude e6400 laptop.

I have a new problem. My bios detects my hard drive, but mhdd does not. When i run mhdd in dos, the prompt reads "C:\"; but the drive is not really the primary drive. Instead, it is the usb drive. So, when i go into mhdd and scan for drives, my dvd rom drive is the only drive that pops up. Does anyone know why mhdd cannot detect my hard drive?

I appreciate any help you can provide me.

[Vulcan]

This is typically caused by the SATA controller being in AHCI mode. For some SATA controllers, MHDD requires them to be in IDE / legacy / compatibility mode (whatever your BIOS calls it). However, many laptop BIOS do not offer this option...

Search the forum for MHDD and SATA in the same post, for more info about this - it's been discussed many times before. It's also mentioned in the MHDD manual web page.

[scuzzman]

This is typically caused by the SATA controller being in AHCI mode. For some SATA controllers, MHDD requires them to be in IDE / legacy / compatibility mode (whatever your BIOS calls it). However, many laptop BIOS do not offer this option...

Search the forum for MHDD and SATA in the same post, for more info about this - it's been discussed many times before. It's also mentioned in the MHDD manual web page.

SATA controller is on "ATA mode".

If this was discussed on another thread, then do you have any link that you can provide me, vulcan?

As for everyone else, moar help, please?

[Vulcan]

SATA controller is on "ATA mode".

Assuming that this is indeed the equivalent on your PC's BIOS to the settings I mentioned, and that it's not a "Dell-ism" for AHCI mode, then that should work.

You may need to use the MHDD "/enableprimary" command line switch (also mentioned on the MHDD manual web page), depending on how your BIOS maps its SATA ports to the legacy I/O port addresses.

If this was discussed on another thread, then is there a link that you can provide me, vulcan?

The search which I mentioned provided 5 different threads on the first results page, mentioning the need to have the SATA controller in the specific mode that I discussed. Given that you've now done that, and with the assumption that I mention above, the only other setting I can think of (assuming your disk really is OK) is the command line switch above.

Another possibility is that the SATA controller's ATA setting on that laptop really isn't close enough to the original behaviour, to be used by MHDD. We've seen people in the past have problems using MHDD on laptops, but everything is fine when the same person moves their drive to a desktop PC.

I'm sure you can sort out the problems

[scuzzman]

SATA controller is on "ATA mode".

You may need to use the MHDD "/enableprimary" command line switch (also mentioned on the MHDD manual web page), depending on how your BIOS maps its SATA ports to the legacy I/O port addresses.

I believe the primary drive is already enabled. In mhdd.cfg, I saw "PRIMARY_ENABLED=TRUE". Earlier today, I loaded up MHDD with those settings -- and no go.

SATA controller is on "ATA mode".

Another possibility is that the SATA controller's ATA setting on that laptop really isn't close enough to the original behaviour, to be used by MHDD. We've seen people in the past have problems using MHDD on laptops, but everything is fine when the same person moves their drive to a desktop PC.

I moved the hard drive from a laptop to a PC. Still no good. In fact, I get a different error: "drive is not ready".

I have a 250 gb sata wd scorpio black hard drive. May I ask: Why MHDD still does not detect my hard drive? On laptop, parallel port is set to ECP, Serial is set to Com1, and SATA is ATA. No success.

[labtech]

To rule out if it is a config issue, test MHDD on that machine with a good drive. If all goes well, then it is not the config.

When you power the failed drive on, what does it do? No spin, clicks, what?

[scuzzman]

Labtech,

Yes, MHDD works on my PC with another western digital drive (caviar SE16). I've tested the hard drive, and it has 1 150 ms block at most. Sources inform me that my hard drive is still okay.

As for the laptop hard drive, when i power the drive on, it boots windows fine. It spins, it does not click.

But the drive is 4-years old. Again, it's in laptop, so moving the drive around causes damage to the hard drive, especially to hdds like the one I have. The reason I would like to test the drive is to scan for any heavily damaged sectors -- like the unreadable ones. In my experience, these kind of errors on hdds happen faster on laptops than Personal Computers. So, I want to test.

[labtech]

Well, if the drive is not showing in MHDD, then it is not healthy enough for testing.

[Vulcan]

@scuzzman,

IMHO the different results which you give for the testing of the same disk on different systems, is an important clue for you. However your descriptions of test results are too unclear about exactly what the test configuration was, for me to understand them.

Therefore I'll just say that if you are just looking to detect unreadable sectors (as you seem to say), then there are simpler ways to do that, than to use MHDD. It depends whether you want to just find unreadable sectors, or whether you "must" use MHDD (and are therefore willing to spend the necessary time and effort to understand and resolve your issues).