Hi to all! New here and not sure if I've come to the right place.
I have an older PC which ran a WD400 CAVIAR EIDE 40 GB HDD.
It has been on 24/7 for the past 6-7 years.

This morning I noticed that my screen showed a MEDIA FAILURE...CHECK CABLE and DISK NOT READY message.

In short the machine (win XP) will no longer see the drive.
I ran a WINTERNALS disk but that did not see the drive either.
THe only thing I can think of is to connect the drive to my laptop (win7)

Can I connect this drive to my laptop and will win7 be able to read the data IF the drive spins?

Thanks for any assistance here. There is a great deal of data on that drive that I would like to retrieve....not critical, just would LIKE to have it back.

More testing is necessary to accurately isolate the issue(s) with the drive. As result, answering your question is not possible at this point.

Any strange sounds from the drive? Does it spin?

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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

This computer is unattended so no way of knowing if there was any noise from the drive prior to failure.
I believe it is not spinning.
I suppose the first step is to get it to spin?
I don't know how to do this but ready to give it a try if given direction.
Thanksin advance for patience with novice.

I have full set of tools available and experience with electronics

Connect drive to a machine with known good power supply unit and start machine. See if drive spins up. If needed, put your hand on the drive and see if it vibrates.
If it doesn't, then there 's the culprit.
If it does, does it make any noises? Does it click? Does it knock? Something?

Start from there and we'll guide you further.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

This sounds bad to me according to the fact of data SEEMS valuable.... However....

Also, consider buying an external drive closure with a USB interface. Try connecting the drive to the enclosure, and see if it works.

This is easier than "hooking up to another machine with a solid power supply", mainly because you won't have to have another Desktop machine. You can use a laptop for this.

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Nationwide data recovery services for RAID servers and laptops - http://www.harddriverecovery.org/

So, the USB connection is more reliable than the IDE/SATA one?

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

i did connect the drive to the other power connectors in the tower and there was no response from the drive at all.

Either there's other problem or the drive is fried in one of his parts. Simple.

Assuming everything else is ok (PSU etc), then you have AT LEAST a faulty pcb in your hdd.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Not more reliable. Easier to deal with.

_________________
Nationwide data recovery services for RAID servers and laptops - http://www.harddriverecovery.org/

Could we see a detailed photo of the component side of the board?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

LMK if you need more or of a specific area/component

Seems like somebody has worked on the PCB. See goo like paste. Is it flux or.something? Who worked on it? What was the goal? What were the results?

Either way, at this point a working compatible PCB will be necessary, along with adaptives transferred.

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

C65 and nearby component don't look fine to say the least....

Just an observation........... 2 pins on U5 appear to have been marked in green. I can't say what this might mean, if anything at all.

Based on the replies, I can tell you that the goop you are seeing is from the pad underneath the board where it [the pad] has melted. You can see the burn marks...

The burn marks and melted pad line up with the (3) components that have the goop...
C65, Q4?, and U6