Hard drive no longer being detected by computer.

Mikeeyy

Honorable
Apr 26, 2013
3
0
10,510
Hi guys, recently bought computer (around 4-6 months ago) all parts brand new and assembled by a friend of mine. The computer has two hard drives, an SSD and a mechanical 1TB seagate. I have had issues with my mechanical hard drive disappearing from my computer in the past, but was able to fix it by pushing in the SATA (I think) cable further into the hard drive.

Just today I have logged on and the hard drive had disappeared again after being fine for 2 months or so. Tried putting the cable in further to no avail, and the hard drive doesn't need to be detected by disk management, my computer, or BIOS. I tried switching the SATA cable used in my optical drive with the one that was used in my hard drive just to see if there was something wrong with the wire, but it still doesn't seem to come up. It would seem to me that my hard drive has just kicked the bucket and I may just need to replace it; does anyone have any other diagnosis or suggestions? Would be much appreciated. Let me know if there's any additional information you need.

Thanks, Mike.
 
Solution
Hard drives will always die - some last forever, others a short life. A good rule of thumb is to have backups for everything. You can download Hiren's CD - it has a ton of diagnostics (free) http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

But if it isn't recognized by the BIOS, chances are the drive has died. The dock or a USB enclosure (usually around $15-30) are very handy to have around.

I usually configure my systems to have a boot drive (SSD or WD Blue), a data drive (my favorite is the WD Black Drives), and one computer in the house has a large WD Black drive for backups. I use syncback free - http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html to backup all my data across the network.

You can use an external drive for backups...

Mikeeyy

Honorable
Apr 26, 2013
3
0
10,510


Thanks for the reply Ron,

I live in Australia where NewEgg does not ship to unfortunately :( I may look around some general computing stores for one of these as there are files I would like to keep on that hard drive. Do you have any other diagnosis for what could be wrong with it other than the fact that it has just broken? Thanks once again for the speedy reply.
 
Hard drives will always die - some last forever, others a short life. A good rule of thumb is to have backups for everything. You can download Hiren's CD - it has a ton of diagnostics (free) http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

But if it isn't recognized by the BIOS, chances are the drive has died. The dock or a USB enclosure (usually around $15-30) are very handy to have around.

I usually configure my systems to have a boot drive (SSD or WD Blue), a data drive (my favorite is the WD Black Drives), and one computer in the house has a large WD Black drive for backups. I use syncback free - http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html to backup all my data across the network.

You can use an external drive for backups as well...

I have 4 computers and a laptop at home, and run backups of the data folders daily (user's folders), and create an image backup of all the OS drives when freshly built - free software there too: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/features.html
 
Solution

Mikeeyy

Honorable
Apr 26, 2013
3
0
10,510


Thanks for the reply again Ron.

I do that the SSD boot drive and SEAGATE mechanical hard drive for storage combination with mostly only my windows stored on the SSD. Sounds like my best option will be just to bite the bullet and fork out for a new mechanical hard drive. Once again, thanks for your help much appreciated!