Question how to fix HDD when bios can only see but can't read its capacity?

[c0s0c0s0]

my wd15ears 1.5T hdd is down. have no clue how it happened. no clicking nor beeping sound noticed from the hdd. it was used in my HP desktop and just suddenly can't be recognized no more. i moved the hdd to another computer and went into the bios and looked. the hdd shows up in the CMOS yet clicking into it for detail settings, it shows 0 on capacity as well as cylinder, head, precomp, landing zone and sector. can anyone shed some light to how to fix please?

 

[rocktalkrock]

Here is a thread describing a similar problem to yours.

[SOLVED] - HDD showing 0GB in bios

I have two new dives in my system, a 250gb ssd and a 2tb wd blue hdd. I've installed windows on the ssd which works just fine, but in file explorer the hdd doesn't show up, just the ssd. Both drives appear in bios but the hdd is showing 0GB. I've tried initialising the hdd but it says that the...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[c0s0c0s0]

thanks rocktalkrock,
the situation is similar but mine's worse.... i cant even see my disk in disk management. windows obviously cant recognize it, yet it is there in the bios.

 

[geofelt]

WD has drive diagnostic software called data lifeguard.
There is a windows version and a bootable stand alone version.
Here is a link to the windows version.
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&lang=en

 

[c0s0c0s0]

thanks for the info, but it did not work since windows cant identify the hdd as a physical drive..... i called a data recovery and they said this would charge me $150 for inspection and then somewhere between $450 to $2000 for data recovery.... if i cant understand and fix it myself.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Is the drive making a clicking noise or is it making no sound at all?
Is the data on the drive very important or just something you would like to recover if possible?
Have you ever heard of "SpinRite" software by Gibson Research? It's made for mechanical HDD's and costs $90. It may be useful to you, I'm not sure.

 

[c0s0c0s0]

the drive makes no clicking noise but has a normal running sound. the drive is important, it contains my family photos for the past 10 years, in fact, this is my backup drive, my main drive went dead a few days ago.
i checked out the web about spinrite, don't know if it would work on my case or not since my bios cant detect the drive's capacity.
thanks much for the advise.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Download and run a free for evaluation program called "Hard Disk Sentinel" to see if it can detect your hard drive. It might give you some useful information.

 

[geofelt]

thanks for the info, but it did not work since windows cant identify the hdd as a physical drive..... i called a data recovery and they said this would charge me $150 for inspection and then somewhere between $450 to $2000 for data recovery.... if i cant understand and fix it myself.

See if you can't find a stand alone bootable version of the utility.

 

[c0s0c0s0]

thanks for the info. i tried to download the dos version and run it from a bootable usb. turned out the message showing some odd message suspecting a smart error. still it couldn't read the drive beyond the name of it.
i am now shifting the investigation scope to fixing smart error instead, since all the drive fixing software doesnt seem working on my case... cos windows cant recognize the drive thus not showing anything to the software to fix.

 

[oblivioncth]

thanks for the info. i tried to download the dos version and run it from a bootable usb. turned out the message showing some odd message suspecting a smart error. still it couldn't read the drive beyond the name of it.
i am now shifting the investigation scope to fixing smart error instead, since all the drive fixing software doesnt seem working on my case... cos windows cant recognize the drive thus not showing anything to the software to fix.

Caught S.M.A.R.T errors are generally due to physical defects with a drive. If you can't find special software that can manage to read the drive using special low level techniques then you will very likely need to have the drive professionally recovered if you want the data off of it. You could try swapping the platters to a donor drive yourself, but without a clean room and specialized tools/experience you're almost guaranteed to damage them beyond repair.

 

[mdd1963]

If your data (photos) are important, stop, and research this web page, and call.email these guys...

https://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/

They might be able to transplant heads, or, move your platters to a drive that works...but DO NOT OPEN YOUR DRIVE yourself...unless you are only half-serious and unwilling to invest any money towards actually getting the data recovered. (As long as the drive's platters are not crashed, these guys can help!)

Those of you with data that you do not wish to lose, especially priceless photos...put them in Dropbox, GoogleDrive, AmazonDrive, One Drive, P CLoud, JottaCloud, Mega, and/or Box,and on more than one external drive. Those with Office365 accounts have 1 TB of cloud storage. Use it!