need computer help (hard drive)

[Taurenthefirst]

i have a really messed up hard drive, and i have a bunch of stuff on it that\'s not backed up that i would like to have if at all possible.

first off, this thing is really screwed up, i\'ve never seen a hard drive so bad.  i can\'t even get to my bios anymore.  is it even possible to get around this?  i think i have some sort of boot sector virus or something, and i\'ve tried everything i can think of.

reinstaled windows xp
reformat
try to boot from windows disk
try to boot from floppy
i\'ve tried a bunch of different programs i\'ve gotten off torrents that say they fix this stuff, none did

is it possible for the voltage or something on my motherboard to be screwed up? because this all started when i was transfering files from my old computer.  i didn\'t have any sort of zip drive or anything so i just set up my old hard drive as a slave (which had been working fine before) and tried to transfer the files from there, but it said that that hard drive wasnt\' formated...
i put it back in my old pc and it wouldn\'t boot
i didn\'t want to reformat that one b/c that would defeat the purpose of recovering my files, so i just left thta one alone for a while. i didn\'t need the actual hard drive itself anyway, it was only 20gb

so, i was content to just use my new hard drive on my new pc (actually it\'s not new, it\'s about a year and a half old, i just never had all the parts for it untill recently, so there\'s no warranty on it) and just deal with my lost files.  then, my new hard drive died as i described at the beginning of the post.  i almost just bought a new hard drive and put it in my newer comp, but i was afraid that hard drive would get screwed up too.  then, my dad bought me a whole new comp anyway.  so now, i\'m just trying to get my files off the first hard drive. is there anything i can do?

[steuben]

it isn\'t voltage. otherwise i think they wouldn\'t boot at all. but the comp you want to work with is the one that at the least recognizes the drive.

but just to check. do you do anything to the drive. format, etc. cause if you did then the data is more likely lost then not.

did that to one of my drives. managed to get just about everything back too. i can\'t remeber exactly the tool was i used. but i think the initials were gmb, or gdb, or something like that. when i get home i\'ll

[MaidenIndigo]

Erm....you barely described the problem.  You only listed the steps you have taken.  First and foremost, calm down.  If you cannot access the BIOS, then it is something other than your HDD.  Your HDD doesn\'t even kick in until after your system is done POSTing.

Double check to make sure that EVERYTHING is plugged in properly and securely.  Wiggle every cable, inspect every removable part.  Once you\'re absolutely sure that you did not forget to plug something back in, then try checking the hardware from the bum computer in a computer that works, otherwise you\'ll never figure out the source of the problem.  I think your main problem is that you don\'t really have any clue as to how you should go about diagnosing the problem.

You could have zapped something while messing around in your computer with static discharge, so the hard drive in question might not even be damaged.

~Indi

[jonmack]

Originally posted by Taurenthefirst ...

i didn\'t have any sort of zip drive or anything so i just set up my old hard drive as a slave (which had been working fine before) and tried to transfer the files from there, but it said that that hard drive wasnt\' formated...
i put it back in my old pc and it wouldn\'t boot

...

First thing that came to my mind - did you reset the HDD jumper back to Master, or whatever it was on before?

Other than that - MaidenIndigo\'s advice on double checking all connections are secure, etc is best.

[MaidenIndigo]

Originally posted by jonmack
First thing that came to my mind - did you reset the HDD jumper back to Master, or whatever it was on before?

Generally when I make that mistake, it\'ll try to boot, but the BIOS will yell at me for changing the boot configuration, or at the very least display the drive as a slave and refuse to load the OS.

But I suppose if the BIOS is relatively old or an early revision, it just gets \"confused\" and simply stops.

I just know that once the molex connector on my HDD was a hair\'s breadth too loose and as a result I thought my HDD\'s motor bit it.  Luckily I tried jiggling the stupid thing until it made proper contact.  Y\'know...jiggling is the second best way to fix things.  Running toilets, flaky molex connectors...

~Indi

[steuben]

ah. found it. the utility that saved my music library and a host of other things. after i managed to chow the the root directory of one of my drives. in counter balance the drive physically failed about 5 months later. so there may have been a connection.

get data back, here www.runtime.org

[Taurenthefirst]

yeah i already i did all the stuff everyone suggested like making sure everything was plugged in right, ive tried it in 4 different computers, 2 of which were not mine, and still work with their original hard drives
 i tried to update the bios
yes the jumpers were right
no i didn\'t format it or anything

@maiden indigo- yeah i really don\'t know what the problem is... it wouldn\'t boot before, and now it won\'t even get to bios... that\'s all i know...i don\'t know enough about computers to figure out what\'s wrong under those circumstances... it was a very short period of time between the not booting to the not reaching bios.. i din\'t really have enough time to go in and look at everything... and ive already done everything on that link you posted except the cmos thing, but i don\'t think i can enter the cmos setup program like the site says

i guess i\'ll try steuban\'s suggestion whenever i get the time