Hello,

I have a PC with 2 HDD, 1st one holds the OS, 2nd one holds my data. The 2nd one is a WD5000AAKS which is now not being detected in BIOS anymore. Windows starts but gives a BSOD during loading and resets the computer.

Symptoms:
A couple of months ago, the PC starting having trouble detecting the HDD, some times even gave system disk error. Usually a reboot would fix this.

In the last couple of weeks, in some days the computer kept restarting 5-10-15times (kept getting BSOD) and after that it booted up, in other days there were no problems. I have to mentions that is was still not detected by bios, but windows was able to see and read it.
Some said it was the SATA cable, so I didn't worry much. I've scanned the HDD with 2 programs, there were no errors, disk health was 100%.

Now the HDD is not detected anymore, BIOS or windows. I've tried replacing the SATA cable and changing the SATA location on the motherboard.
In BIOS if I try to detect the HDD, it seems to power up, starts spinning and the powers off. At first the BIOS would hang indefinitely with the "Detecting HDD" message and now after about a minute the message closes and no HDD is detected.

Any suggestions on what I can try next? I have some important data on it that I really need to recover. Do you guys need any other information off the HDD label?

I am thinking of trying to connect the HDD to another PC, see if it gets detected and if not, place it in an external USB enclosure and see if the OS detects it.

Thank you in advance.

From what I recall, these drives sometimes suffer from PCB faults which can seem like other, physical problems. Wait until someone more knowledgeable about these drives gives you some advice.

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Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. I've tried to connect the HDD to another PC, still not discovered in BIOS. Also tried with a linux live CD and mounting the HDD, but it is not discovered.

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Most likely it is a heads problem.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

What can be done in this case?

I mention that once Windows booted up and the HDD was detected, I didn't encounter any problems and the HDD scanning software didn't show any errors. The system could stay turned on up to 48 hours and the HDD was used (had some seeding torrents on it).

I agree with jono-ats, that's the typical symptom of damaged heads. So your drive needs to be "touched" by a pro who knows how to solve those problems.

Pm sent.
Seems heads to me too, with some possibility being the FW. Is there any pro from this forum in Romania or near, willing to take a look at the drive?

What is the complete model of the drive? (WD5000AAKS-_______?)

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

There is i know one expert guy.
If OP need pro help there
Romania, Bucharest :
+4 O7(two)794O45(Six)
Ig0r

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Angel Data Recovery

See this thread:
wd5000aaks-00tma0-damaged-t19077.html

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A backup a day keeps DR away.