what happened to my hard drives?

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Webberson

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 4, 2009
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I have 2 HDD's that have crashed. Here is what happened:
My computer crashed - it was a X58 MB that failed. Attached were 4 HHD's. I built a new computer based on X79. Of the four HHD's, two work fine, the other two are dead. The dead ones do not show up in the bios and do not show up at all no matter what I do. To trouble shoot, I put a good one and a bad one next to each other. Then, I swap the SATA connectors. The bad one is still bad and good one is still good. Then, I swap the SATA's back and swap the power connectors. Same results. Then I swap both connectors (data and power) and get the same results.

I would like to get a program to rescue them, but if the bios does not see them, it probably won't work at all.

Any ideas what may have happened and how do go about getting the data back?

BTW, the failed drives were black WD - a 2TB and a 1TB. The good ones are a 1TB Samsung and the other good one is a 1TB WD Black. Also, the dead ones are less than a year old.
 
It's a little strange that two hard drives would fail you at the same time. The odds against that happening are pretty great. I would remove all the drives except 1 drive only and then try that drive not only on different sata ports but with different sata and power connectors. Only then can you truly decide if you have a problem or not. Do that for each different drive you have. Even do that for the two working drives. Chances are, you may even re-create the same problem for a working drives. You might have a bad sata data / power connector, bad power supply, bad port, etc.
 
I actually did all that, but didn't mention it. I am thinking I may have had an electrical surge that took out my MB and the 2drives. Is there Software that can retrieve the data if the drive is not even seen in the bios?
 
Worst case scenario, if you have data on those drives that you can't live without, is to try switching the PCB on the bad drive with a known good one. Question, do the bad drives spin up at least even if they don't post to the BIOS?
 
Wow, I've been seeing a lot of the newer models of WD drives die a lot lately, especially the Black and Green drives.

Seagate is actually stepping up its game lately, I think I'm actually siding with Seagate desktop-class drives for the first time.

Try what mwroobel said, it's definitely worth a shot to recover your data at least.
 
I will try swapping the PCB from the good drive to the dead drive this weekend when I get back home. Do you think the PCB from the good drive (1TB) will work on the 2TB drive?
 
I do have a good 2TB WD drive that I swapped out the PCB. When I put the drive (HDD with good PCB) into the system, it starts to boot, but stops after the four colors come together (win7-64). I can hear the drive - it's going click-click,,,click-click and then won't boot. I guess the only thing left for me to do is to send the drive back to WD under warranty. I've only had it for about 6 months.
 
You may have drives that don't like AHCI mode. I had a pair that didn't, and it kept them from showing up. Even fried one of them.
 
Webberson said:
I do have a good 2TB WD drive that I swapped out the PCB. When I put the drive (HDD with good PCB) into the system, it starts to boot, but stops after the four colors come together (win7-64). I can hear the drive - it's going click-click,,,click-click and then won't boot. I guess the only thing left for me to do is to send the drive back to WD under warranty. I've only had it for about 6 months.
Click to expand...
Hopefully they won't notice the PCB swap and deny your RMA.
 
I put them back. However, I just thought of something else to try. That is, I didn't try the good drive with PCB from the bad drive. That may tell me if the problem with the bad drive is due to the platters or the PCB.
 
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