I want to erase a SATA drive that doesn't appear in Windows Disk Management. Mounted in a USB enclosure, it will sometimes activate the LED power light when first turned on and it can be seen by PCInspector, and the files are seen by PCInspector. More often, the LED indicator blinks for a moment, and then stays off, but the drive continues to make a whrring sound, that is interrrupted every 8-9 seconds for a fraction of a second. In that state, PCInspector sees nothing. The data is backed up, so I simply want to erase/format and get the drive working again. I burned a CD from the .img package for MHDD. It is not bootable. Does this CD use Windows 98 files? This computer cannot boot to a Win98 disc; it needs a Win XP or Vista disc. It also has no floppy drive. I don't think the software can repair / erase drives connected by USB, so what's next? Does this software have an option to burn a Win XP boot disc?

Throw this disk; the symptomes you describe tell me its damaged, dont trust it any more. For the bin.

Dobre

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Boot CD's are ISO based. There is a program out there called ISO burner. You need to use this in order to make a boot CD. On the Web there are a lot of sites that will explain to you step by step how to create a boot CD. Try reading them and following the direction. Easy CD Creator has a built in function with the program to make a boot disk on CD

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Iorana Haraharaini

I have a _slightly_ similar problem, except that in my case, I'm using a Dell Vostro 1000 Laptop, and the drive in question is also an external USB, the drive inside is an IDE that I bought separately. It's not accessible in Windows, but the BIOS can see it.

The problem I have for now is that when I boot MHDD, it gets to the cursor prompt, but at that point, suddenly my keyboard doesn't work and the caps lock and num lock indicators light up. I tried to find out what keyboard I have on this computer, and it's identified as a PS/2, no label, and all research points to Dell as the mfr. So, do I need a special DOS driver for this thing, or is my problem something else? I want to see if MHDD can tell me anything but can't seem to get past "Go". I'm almost ready to send this off to someone else to pull all the data for me, but it's frustrating that I can't first do any diagnosis. I'm very used to assembling and diagnostics with desktops, but laptop issues seem to be much more complicated.

Thanks for any help.

TS

Sorry it is not a keyboard problem it is the USB drive that is attached to the computer causing this problem. Even when you boot from a ISO cd and your drive is running it can lock up certain systems and not allow them to boot and cause the systems that you have described above. Try to boot only from MHDD cd and then turn on your USB drive. or second attach this drive to the computer and work from there.

If possible can I ask a dumb question to you. Why does everyone use all this freeware and try to repair their drives in the first place? I have been in computers a long time and over 95% of all problems in the OS is lack of knowledge and usage of freeware programs that are on the system. I know they sound great but did you research it before trying to use it before. I have never used this program but just know that linux live cd can do a good job in repairing a lot. It does take time to download but I have used this more than once for may things other than wipping out my drive and trying to format it. It is a great tool that offers a lot maybe try to download it and burn it to an iso file and see what that can do for you only suggestions. Other than that if the drive keep locking up it could either be a problem with the SA or heads of the drive and are you sure you really want to go on and fix that and use it again.

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Iorana Haraharaini

I'm not really interested in re-using the drive, I just want to reclaim the files on it and then throw it out.

The reason people try free software is that if it works, then they're not spending money unnecessarily. Also, sometimes people don't have any spare cash for things that come up unexpectedly. The economy would be one factor, a crappy job or no job would be another.

I am thinking of trying Spinrite but I won't be able to get it until next month at the earliest. Spinrite is US$89, which is less than it costs to send the drive to someone, but more than I can spare at the moment. More info at GRC.com <http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm> However, it is much cheaper than PC3000...and it appears that it _also_ works with all kinds of drives. So for a non-professional such as myself, Spinrite seems like a reasonable alternative to explore. And of course, it will be useful for other drives in the future.

Thanks to my current experience I am seriously considering graduating to a RAID 1 setup in an external enclosure. I'm still looking at the various options, as there are many. First though, I need to reclaim my data...

T.S.

Have a search on this forum for that software. To read what others have to say about it.