Quick summary-

Girlfriend brought me her computer saying "it's broken". Dell Dimension 3000. HD mounted at the front of the box against the metal portion behind the plastic face plate.

Hooked everything up and plugged it in. Power it up, and I hear a repeated "click, click" coming from the HD. Computer does not boot, and gives a "drive 0 not found" message eventually about the time the clicking from the drive stops on it's own. I tried booting from CD rom drive and the BIOS would not show the hard drive at all.


Taking apart the machine I find a build up of dust over some of the ventaliation holes on the front of the cabinet. HD is mounted with the PCB facing towards the center of the case, in a little metal cage. Did heat kill it? Maybe but I do not know. I can post a picture of the dust I found if it's of interest. She doesn't leave her computer on for more than 4-6 hours at a stretch.


Have bought a new IDE hard drive that I will install all her system software on from the backup discs that came with the machine. We will get her a backup external HD after she is back up and running.


I would like to try and rescue her data off the old HD if possible. She has her iTunes collection there, her resume and her whole digital picture collection Not something she can justify paying lots of money to recover, especially given money is very, very tight for her but the photos are near impossible to replace.


I would appreciate any help and direction you can offer me.



I had heard about changing the circuit board if that is the problem, and also cooling the disc down, and then trying to recover the data. Not sure if the PCB is dead or the cause of this? I was thinking of trying the cool-down method, but IF you think this is a good thing to try I have a few questions first:


1) fridge or freezer? How long?
2) allow the HD to hit room temp or plug it in right way after taking it out?
3) should I buy some specialized software like "Spinrite" from GRC.com to copy the files off or are there windows or Western Digital utilities that may work better or faster? I am concerned if the drive comes back to life it might be for a limited time so the more data I can get off it in a short period of time the better.



Thanks in advance for any help or assistance you can offer.


Cheers!

Brian

1) - Neither and not for any amount of time. At best this will make no difference at all.
2) - Again, this is not recommended and should be done at your own discretion.
3) - Software, no matter how specialised, will only work with a disk that is accessible via Operating System/BIOS. And even if disk was accessible, SpinRite is wrong choice of software.

You need to provide more information like the Hard Disk model, and does knocking continue endlessely, or does it stop after short time, or does it stop spinning?

Knocking is common sign of internal mechanical damage, which is not recoverable without the right tools and skillset. It is possible your fault could be elsewhere, which is why more details are needed.


I expect after several reading attempts (knocking) the spindle stops and knocking stops also. Post more information regarding Hard Disk model and maybe you can get a more accurate response about the symptoms and the fault.

If data is so critical dont freeze your hard drive nor try any other myths..

Shop around for quotes mate. somebody should do it for a reasonable amount.. you cant replace photos.. but you could borrow a few Canadian dollars to get an expert todo it.

Its most likely it got knocked and the heads are damaged, bad sectors, corrupt partitions in any order or all at once..

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Drive details:

Model: WD800BB-75JHC0
DCM: DSBHYTJCH
Rev: A00



Of interesting note, I installed the brand new WD 160GB IDE replacement drive in and get the same "drive 0 not found" error. No clicking noise though.

Still waiting for Dell to send me a copy of the Win XP home discs that came with her system when new, however when I try and boot from the Win XP Pro SP3 "reinstall" disc Dell provided with one of MY machines (Dell Vostro 220 vs her Dimension 3000) it eventually ends up with a blue screen error after loading all the device drivers. Perhaps Dell encodes these discs to only work on specific machines?

Also a quick question - can a failed hard disk cause damage to the controller on the motherboard? I find it strange that the brand new, just out of the packaging 160GB WD Caviar Blue drive is getting the same "drive not found" error -- albeit with no clicking or other noises.

No pal.. You got it the wrong way around.

If a new HDD does not work inside the Dell 3000 then its IDE fault.
I have seen IDE/SATA controllers stop working on laptops for what ever reason. HDD wont cause damage to the controller (unless tampered with)

So i suggest (since you want to try at home first) get an ide enclosure , a few dollars at your local IT shop. Plug the new HDD in to it. Test it on a working sytem. Detects HDD , can format it, copy files... OK

Replace the new 160 with the old one. Plug into USB listen if it starts clicking, if it spins up. If it does not then you have physical damage inside the HDD. (This wont damage your computer, USB port or enclosure in any way) ( It could how ever cause more damage to the patient drive )

If it spins up. then you should see newe hard ware found, and udner my computer a new removable disc.
If you click on it and it says 'You need to format the disc' DONT DO IT!
If you click on it and it opens - copy what you need and ditch the patient drive.
-- Keep listening to the HDD so it does not make whinning noisey, if accessed it will make soft ticking sounds but if it makes a knocking sound, then stops and does it again its bad sectors.. DO NOT PROCEED

Let us know what happens... maybe you can save the files

(PS Dell does not encode discs in any way - they can however include non-standard drivers for a specific model but that will not cause your new dell 200 to blue screen - this is caused by out of date driver that does not support AHCI in the new SATA controllers dell loves so much)

Good Luck Chuck

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don't forget that the power supply might not be giving enough power to the peripherals, (weak Power Supply), u can try to unplug all the unnecessary things & just power Motherboard & hard Drive to see if it detects, spins excreta....

The original Dell Win XP home SP2 disc package arrived today. Brand new HD plugged in (as before). Win XP home disc in the CD rom. Power it on and I get the "hard Disk 0 not found" error. Hit F1 to try again and this time it boots from the CD....loads all the drivers....says starting windows....then I get this message - which is the exact same message I received with my Win XP Pro disc:

First off I want to say THANK YOU for all the help and suggestions I've received so far


update:

I had a brand new spare power supply in my closet. It's a low-cost "Speed" brand 450W "max power" ATX unit, but it is brand new and never used.

Unhooked the unit in her Dell - plugged in my spare one. Exact same result as above. So, I think we can rule out power supply issues. Unless 450W isn't enough for a P4 3 gig machine with (1) CD/DVD, (1) 160GB hard drive, and 1 PCI modem.


I also had my ear near the new HD and it DEFINITELY sounded like it was powered up and spinning.

7F is usually a hardware error.
Since you are getting this error when booting
from cd, I would suspect this may be a memory problem.
But since you are getting "drive not found" error also,
I would try the other ide channel.
Also check your drive cables.

Update:

Had some more time to play with this tonite.

Tried the new HD in the other IDE channel --the one that recognised the CD/DVD drive-- and got a "drive 1 not found" error. Hmmm - interesting. Pulled the new HD, took a look at it, and found something. The jumper on the back was set to designate it as a "master" per the enclosed booklet that came with the drive -- except the diagram on the drive itself indicated that NO jumper is used to designate the drive as a master. So, I pulled the jumper.......re-assembled it all.....and voila - drive is found!


Now I just need to set up XP on her machine. I may use the copy of XP Pro SP3 that came with my Vostro 220's instead of her copy of XP home SP2. Heard that Microsoft will only be updating XP Pro and has dropped support for XP home already?

Hmmm- just realized I will have to use the OEM license number from one of my office machines on her PC to do this. that will mean 2 machines set up using the same license number. Is that a problem?


Also when I got my last Dell and my HP before that, they had the HD partitioned into a large disk, and a 5-10GB partition. They used the small partition for a "system restore" feature. Any idea if I can enable this option during my install and if it's worthwhile?

One last question- would her old XP home install (July 2005 computer MFR date) have used the NTFS file system or FAT32?



Thanks again for all the help getting to this point. After I get her system up and running we'll look at the options to restore the data on her old 80GB Caviar drive.

On WD, jumpered as master = master w/ slave present

also your Dell disk will automagically install with no key or activation required as it is a Dell machine

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

yeah go with the dell DISC, they have an embeded key that is for dell systems,... glad you ruled out the power supply & found out that the WD drives... No Jumper is single drive, Master is Designate Master Drive with a slave Present on the Same IDE channel just like DRC says,