Hi Everyone,

As you can see I am new to the forum. I have been trying to research my issue and I am starting to learn quite a bit. However, I wanted to get the opinion of the experts on this forum since I am very new to hard drive issues.

I have a Barracuda 7200.10. About a week ago, my system started to have issues which eventually lead to "disk read error insert system disk and press enter."

I thought it possible that my windows install became corrupted. Since I had my windows install on a separate partition I was just going to format that partition and reinstall windows.

In beginning to install Windows XP Pro, I was asked what partition I wanted to install to. Windows showed all partitions, but was showing that the two partitions were empty. At this point I knew there was another error as those partitions were certainly not empty.

The drive is showing up in Bios, however there are times on start up that it will not show up.

I attempted to us GPARTED to find the hard drive and partitions. GPARTED would indeed find the hard drive and partitions. It also correctly knew how much data GB wise was on the drives. However, GPARTED was unable to give me a detailed listing of the data not could I transfer the data to another drive.

I also attempted to use TESTDISK in windows 7. TESTDISK however would not find the hard drive. I cannot boot into windows with the faulty drive attached to the motherboard.

At this point in time, the drive does not make any odd or discernible noises what so ever.

Based on my humble research, this sounds like a non-mechanical internal failure: either corrupted firmware microcode on the logic board or on platters or some bad sectors in the user area.

I am posting to see if the forums agree and what my potential avenues for retrieving my data would be.

The following is some data that might be needed for reference:

Barracuda 7200.10 750GB

S/N 3QD0TRW6

ST3750640AS

P/N: 9BJ148-308

Firmware: 3.AAJ

Date Code: 07301

Site Code: AMK

Thank you all in advance for any advice you can provide.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

most probably you have bad sectors on user data, maybe on SA too

need right tools to diagnose it properly.

what tools do u have or if you are not doing data recovery: is your data valueble?

As a suggestion, if you don't want to send disk to a pro, check if Linux can see your disk correctly. Start your machine using a Linux LiveCD (ubuntu, suse etc) and check.

Post results here.

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As far as actual hardware tools are concerned, I really have no diagnostic tools.

I will try using Ubuntu tomorrow to see if the drive is recognized and post those results here.

The data isn't valuable monetarilly, but it is important to me. There are photos and videos from our wedding that I would hate to lose as my wife would be furious among a few other things that being able to recover would make life a bit easier.

I have talked to a professional about recovering the data who feels is would be a $650 job which I don't know if that is reasonable or not.

Thank you for the help thus far.

The first problem here is the actual diagnosis. While you are not able to accurately confirm the problem a good solution cannot be identified.

I doubt that there are bad sectors in the SA as suggested earlier, but is very likely that there are indeed some surface problems which is causing problems for you during accessing the media. There is also a good chance that at least 1 recording head is failing or even already failed. In many situations this would still allow for good ID but no access.

A professional DR facility will have all the right tools to properly diagnose any problems, repairs can be made if required and hopefully a clone can be made prior to the recovery of your files.

If you proceed with DIY you will likely make the problem worse as if there are surface/head problems the more you make the disk work the worse the problem will become as the media will be made to work twice as hard as if it was functioning normally.

My opinion is that you likely have damage to sectors within the data area, but whether this is the cause of poor recording heads or through general usage is impossible to tell at this stage.

Totally agree.

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Alright,

A live boot cd with ubuntu on it was a no go. The drive would not show up. I did take the drive to yet another computer to make sure it wasn't just an issue with my systems.

In my haste, I neglected to power off that PC. I was actually in stand by mode when I installed the hard drive. Luckily I did not damage to the pc. However, when I restored Windows, I could see my drive listed under the device manager. However, the device manager could not provide any volume information.

I also tried re-booting into Windows 7 on that PC with the Seagate drive installed and the OS on a WD drive. Unfortunately on this computer as well, I could not actually boot into windows with the failing drive installed.

Programs such as Spinrite will see the drive in dos, but lock up when I try to do anything with it.

I have had thoughts of trying to see what HDD Regenerator would do, but I wanted to get the thoughts of you individuals first.

I think signs are pointing to the fact that I may not be able to recover this data on my own. If that is the case, can anyone recommend a reliable and reasonable service provider that has worked with folks on the forum?

Once again, thank you for your advice.

No. Don't do that! The drive is dying and all that would do is kill it! Anyway if other attemts to access the drive have failed then HDD Regerator/Killer probably won't be able to.

Well at this point, it looks like i am in need of a data recorvery service. Can anyone recommend someone reliable and reasonable?

I currently reside about 40 miles west of Chicago in a town called Elgin, IL.

I also am not adverse to shipping the drive if necessary.

If anyone on the forum may be able to help directly, please pm me.

Thank you once again for your help.