HDD not appearing in My Computer

[a7med]

I have this WD Caviar 14300 4GB, have it since 1999, last time I used it it had a short circuit and stopped working, that was maybe in 2002, it had Windows Profesional 2000 installed on it.

All I want is to recover the files on my old HDD.

Today I bought an identical model, used but healthy HDD, I swapped all electronics in the old with the new one, including the pin, and power plug and main board. I hooked it up to my Widows XP Professional as a slave, it appeared on the bios, it appears in the Device Manager, but it doesn't appear in My Computer. Any idea why and how can I make it appear?

Thanks.

[poehere]

Check your jumper setting on the HDD and see if you have it attached as a slave instead of CS normally this can happen when you are not setting the drive up correctly

[a7med]

Check your jumper setting on the HDD and see if you have it attached as a slave instead of CS normally this can happen when you are not setting the drive up correctly

I've swapped the jumper several times, I tried Secondary Salve, Secondary Master, but frive didn't appear neither in bios or anywhere, only when I hooked it as Primary Salve it did appear, but weird thing is my wireless internet connection doesn't work when hooked up as Primary Salve, which is not a problem, just thought to note, I just want to copy the files and the I'll be happy to trash this old piece of junk. I've been carrying it around since 2002 hoping one day I'll recover the files. Now is the time and I hope I'll be able to get an answer here.
Thanks.

[scratchy]

The safest way is to have only the WD on the cable, then remove all jumpers. This is then set as master with no other drives present.

[a7med]

The safest way is to have only the WD on the cable, then remove all jumpers. This is then set as master with no other drives present.

you mean to run it as a Master? it has an operating system installed but when I try to boot it reaches a screen saying select either "Windows Professional 2000" or "Windows Professional 2000 recovery console", when I select either one it gets stuck and nothing happens.

[pepe]

check it in MHDD wether it shows correct model, serial and size.
If either one does not match the expectations, probably the ROM version of the new PCB differs from the bad one.

pepe

[dick]

Hi, Maybe during those years the drive was in storage it has taken a knock or two and there are now some bad sectors. That might be why the drive appears to get stuck while loading windows.
Can you see the drive in administrative tools under computer management then storage tab?
You could run a scan on the drive using Mhdd or Victoria to see if there are any bad blocks. Don't set the option to remap or fix at this moment in time. And don't run a chkdsk on the drive until you have your data back!

[a7med]

check it in MHDD wether it shows correct model, serial and size.
If either one does not match the expectations, probably the ROM version of the new PCB differs from the bad one.

pepe

I compared the labels, everything is identical except where it says S/N, one is WM626, and the other is WT626. And also where it says DCM, one is CVBA EQPAOAAE, the other is CVAA ENVAOAAE. The bad one is made in Malaysia, and the good one is made in Singapore, the manufacturing date are only 3 months apart in 1999. Model numbers are the same, WD P/N numbers are the same.

Hi, Maybe during those years the drive was in storage it has taken a knock or two and there are now some bad sectors. That might be why the drive appears to get stuck while loading windows.
Can you see the drive in administrative tools under computer management then storage tab?
You could run a scan on the drive using Mhdd or Victoria to see if there are any bad blocks. Don't set the option to remap or fix at this moment in time. And don't run a chkdsk on the drive until you have your data back!

I pampered it through out this time, wrapped it airtight and put it in a hard disk jewel case and been sitting on it ever since if it was an egg it would have hatched.
Will check under Administrative Tools and revert back, I haven't thought of that.
Thanks.

[a7med]

Can you see the drive in administrative tools under computer management then storage tab?

Thanks, I checked under computer management and found the drive, it was listed as 'foreign' (obviously because it had Win 2000 Professional) , so I imported it, now I could see the drives contents, but my entire computer is slow as hell, a dead snail decomposes faster, such as highlighting a folder, opening and folder, takes 2-5 minutes to react, and the HDD keeps making a sound every five seconds, sounds like the pin moving. Why is it so slow? I cannot copy or open any file.

[poehere]

Sounds like you will need to make a copy of this drive if you can and use it to recovery your data from. You should never work with a broken drive that you have fixed. If you can not make a clone of this drive and have it kind of up and working maybe it is just a mater that a DR company can do this for you for a really reasonable price so you can have back your data. If now it is only for cloning and getting back data your price should not be that high on this drive.

[a7med]

Sounds like you will need to make a copy of this drive if you can and use it to recovery your data from. You should never work with a broken drive that you have fixed. If you can not make a clone of this drive and have it kind of up and working maybe it is just a mater that a DR company can do this for you for a really reasonable price so you can have back your data. If now it is only for cloning and getting back data your price should not be that high on this drive.

Money is not a concern, privacy is, or I would've done that years ago ... any other idea how can I do this myself? I've come a long way already to resort to a DR company.

[dick]

If you insist on doing it yourself then for your particular case I would recommend the following;

Use a pc with 2 ide ports on the motherboard.

Boot to dos and run the clone utility called CopyR.dma Its free!!!

Clone the 4gb drive to a suitable replacement (shouldn't take too long).

Then mount the cloned drive into a windows pc and run software recovery tools to get your data.

[a7med]

If you insist on doing it yourself then for your particular case I would recommend the following;

Use a pc with 2 ide ports on the motherboard.

Boot to dos and run the clone utility called CopyR.dma Its free!!!

Clone the 4gb drive to a suitable replacement (shouldn't take too long).

Then mount the cloned drive into a windows pc and run software recovery tools to get your data.

Thanks, I'll give this route a try.

[pepe]

I compared the labels, everything is identical except where it says S/N, one is WM626, and the other is WT626. And also where it says DCM, one is CVBA EQPAOAAE, the other is CVAA ENVAOAAE. The bad one is made in Malaysia, and the good one is made in Singapore, the manufacturing date are only 3 months apart in 1999. Model numbers are the same, WD P/N numbers are the same.

I meant that after changing the PCB and plugging the drive under MHDD, does MHDD show correct size and SN as it appears on the label?

pepe

[poehere]

OK make a good clone of your HDD as described to you. Then attach the cloned drive again on your computer. You can use the program get data back or R Studio to do a raw recovery of this data. It sounds like the original drive from what you are describing can read the partition but it is taking a long time to copy your data off this drive. A cloned drive should help you to use a recovery program to access your data and get it back. If not possible to recovery your data in files and folders these program can recover your data in raw file form and you can then rename each document you wish to keep. Good luck on this one