Broken sata cable / Changed the cable / Hard drive still wont work

[Ali_111]

2 days ago my computer suddenly crashed itself and when I was away and I found it with an error message on screen "Bootmgr is missing, ctrl+alt+del to restart" I though Wİndows's boot files were corrupted for some reason and tried to fix it with some solutions from the web. Nothing seemed to work so I decided to format the SSD where I had windows installed. After the format I noticed that one of my hard drives wasn't listed in the computer. I have 3 hard drives, 1 SSD for OS, and two 1tb hard drives. One of those 1tb hard drives was missing.

I opened up my case and noticed that the Sata cable was broken where it connects to the back of the hard drive. I assumed that this was the root of the problem, I removed the broken sata cable and checked the pins on the hard drive and they seemed to be healthy. So I went outside and bought a new sata cable, plugged it in. This time I had a new error, "no such partitions found" and below had this command prompt ">grub rescue" something like that. I did some reading and learned that the boot files might be in the wrong hard drive etc. so I tried the "set prefix, set root" commands but none worked. When I typed in "ls" only 2 hard drives show up. "hdd0 and hdd1" I guess my third hard disk still isnt working properly with the new cable. I'm assuming the boot files were in that hard disk so windows cant boot itself properly.

Bios settings can only see my 120gb ssd and 1tb hdd. 3rd hard drive is not showing up there (with the new cable).
Should I assume the hard drive is broken? I had some very important footage in there and I don't want to lose it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Ali_111,

You should always perform clean OS installs when only one of the drive is attached, in your case the SSD. So, in case you are still having some troubles booting your system up, you need to leave only your SSD attached to the system and reinstall OS.
Regarding your drive, you need to try using both different cables(power one as well). It would be nice if you attach it to another SATA port as well. You can even attach it to another system so you can be absolutely sure if there is something wrong with your system or the drive itself.

If none of these works, then the HDD has failed. You will need to contact a data recovery company in case the data stored on it is crucial.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD

 

[Ali_111]

Hi there Ali_111,

You should always perform clean OS installs when only one of the drive is attached, in your case the SSD. So, in case you are still having some troubles booting your system up, you need to leave only your SSD attached to the system and reinstall OS.
Regarding your drive, you need to try using both different cables(power one as well). It would be nice if you attach it to another SATA port as well. You can even attach it to another system so you can be absolutely sure if there is something wrong with your system or the drive itself.

If none of these works, then the HDD has failed. You will need to contact a data recovery company in case the data stored on it is crucial.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD

Thanks for the clarification man, didn't know that. I dont have anymore OS issues I have a clean install now. But as far as i know, the power cables of the hdd comes from the power source directly, how can I replace them?
I've tried using another port, doesn't work. I guess I'll see if I can find another system as well to try on.

 

[D_Know_WD]

You have several drives right? Attach that one to the port of your other HDD. That way, you will use its power and SATA cables.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[Ali_111]

You have several drives right? Attach that one to the port of your other HDD. That way, you will use its power and SATA cables.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

So I'm just going to detach my working hdd, use it's sata and power cables and it's port for the sleepy hdd, right?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Yeah, that's right.
In that case, you wont even need to attach the drive to another system.

D_Know_WD

 

[Nik_4_]

You have several drives right? Attach that one to the port of your other HDD. That way, you will use its power and SATA cables.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

So I'm just going to detach my working hdd, use it's sata and power cables and it's port for the sleepy hdd, right?

Yes. This will let you know if it's a cable issue or a HDD issue.

If you use the working hdd's cables and the "sleepy hdd" still doesn't appear, it's a harddrive issue. If you use the working hdd's cables and the "sleep hdd" appears, it's a cable issue.

 

[Ali_111]

Yeah, that's right.
In that case, you wont even need to attach the drive to another system.

D_Know_WD

You have several drives right? Attach that one to the port of your other HDD. That way, you will use its power and SATA cables.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

So I'm just going to detach my working hdd, use it's sata and power cables and it's port for the sleepy hdd, right?

Yes. This will let you know if it's a cable issue or a HDD issue.

If you use the working hdd's cables and the "sleepy hdd" still doesn't appear, it's a harddrive issue. If you use the working hdd's cables and the "sleep hdd" appears, it's a cable issue.

Oh thank god, I've fixed the issue. I used the working hdd's sata and power and the sleepy hdd worked perfectly. Seems like both the power cable and the new sata cable were corrupt cause I had to use the DVD rom's sata cable.

Thank you so much, thanks to you I've saved the short movie I've been working on for 5 months. 😀DDDDD

 

[D_Know_WD]

It's great you've sorted this out.

Keep in mind that mechanical drives just fail, in many cases, even without a warning. So, you need to keep the data that you can't afford to loose stored on at least two places.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD