2nd SATA drive not recognized

[darrelross]

While checking to see if a newer/larger video card would fit in my existing machine, my secondary HDD (which worked just fine) fell out of the case onto the floor.

I reconnected everything...SATA cable and PSU cable, and when I turn on the PC the drive makes a sound like it's trying to do something, but doesn't quite get there.... a repeated sound kind of like a CD drive trying to read a scratched disk...

I go into the BIOS and I see my 6 available SATA slots but the second slot where the HDD drive is connected is completely blank. The first show my primary drive, the third shows DVD drive and 4,5 6 and show available, but number shows nothing. Almost as if it knows something is plugged in.

Am I missing a step, or did I just break my HDD?

 

[Paperdoc]

Sounds broken to me. The sound you describe is the HDD head arm trying repeatedly to position itself for reading. But each time it gets there and tries to read, the read attempt fails. So the HDD's own board tells the heads to pull back to the reference position, then advance again to the target location and read. Repeated failures explain why your BIOS cannot show any HDD on that SATA port - it is getting no response to attempts to access the HDD.

Sad tale, I'm afraid.