Hard Drive Failure!

[KungFuKid]

I doubt it's a hardware issue. Before you damage the drive I would suggest trying that partition repair tool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that will not work as the HDD is not detected in BIOS.

[lithium630]

I doubt it's a hardware issue. Before you damage the drive I would suggest trying that partition repair tool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that will not work as the HDD is not detected in BIOS.

It appears to be unformatted. I don't know if the bios will see it but windows will not.

[newfiend]

I doubt it's a hardware issue. Before you damage the drive I would suggest trying that partition repair tool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that will not work as the HDD is not detected in BIOS.

If the HDD is not showing up in the BIOS I would almost bet money on a bad controller card on the HDD itself.. You can also check ebay to see if there are controller boards for the HDD you have.. Sometimes people post things like that and if your handy enough you may be able to repair it..

There is a big difference in it not showing up in Windows Vs. It not showing in the BIOS.. Ususally if it doesn't show in the BIOS there is something wrong with the Drive/Controller (PCB on the bottom of the drive itself.) SATA cable, or SATA port on the motherboard itself..
Since it has been in multiple PC's and can not be found, and attached to multiple SATA cables and ports.. It's looking more and more like a bad drive..
Just my 2 Cents..
newfiend~

[Crash2009]

Yea, swap out the board if you can. Don't whack it until you have tried everything else. Didn't know about the freezer trick, sounds like it would be less invasive than the hammer.

Had to use the hammer trick a couple years ago on an old IDE. Struck by lightning, shorted out something inside. Gave it a whack, and it booted. Ran for a couple days then died. The hammer was never able to get it started a second time. You only get one shot at the hammer trick, so be ready. Install another drive first, so you have somewhere to copy to.

[lithium630]

Yea, swap out the board if you can. Don't whack it until you have tried everything else. Didn't know about the freezer trick, sounds like it would be less invasive than the hammer.

Yeah, that was my point. I would all possible software solutions before possibly damaging the hardware. I have quite a few hard drives in my system. Only one failure so far has been mechanical. The loud grinding noise gave it away.

[STC]

This thread is funny. The 'hammer' or handle of a screwdriver is very useful if you use it to tap the back of the drive if it is not spinning or the heads are playing a tune.

Aside from black magic I think we've covered the gamut here!

[STC]

And swapping the logic board on a drive is tricky. If it was a board failure, you have to perform a low level scan of the platters after that to get all the data back.

[KungFuKid]

Well my media centre is back up and running, I have taken an image using Windows backup and backed up media centre settings using mcbackup.

I will keep trying the faulty HDD to see if one day it manages to detect.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help!