[SOLVED] How to fix Unknown/Unreadable hard disk?

[WulfgarTheSavage]

Firstly, I should start talking about how the HDD got into this situation, as it may help in solving the issue. Also, I know I shouldn't have done this but, the damage has already been done.

It started a few weeks ago. My Windows was updating and after about 4-5 hours I was met with a black screen and nothing was happening when pressing any button and I said "screw it", so I unplugged the PC. Then upon boot, Windows was trying to revert the whole update and after about 10-20 minutes I was met with the same black screen so I unplugged it again and that was the biggest mistake. I tried installing Windows again on the same HDD but it just didn't work, because when it reached a certain point during installation, it would reboot. I got another HDD and installed windows on that.

1) I looked in "This PC", the HDD isn't there.
2) I installed AOMEI Partition Assistant and I get an error if I try to initialize the disk:

Sorry, the current operation has been canceled!
Information Code: 45
Description:Failed to initialize this disk.

What does the Information Code mean? Please refer to: https://www.diskpart.com/help/errorcode.html

3) When trying to convert the disk to GPT using AOMEI, I get this error:

Sorry, the current operation has been canceled!
Information Code: 6
Description:The partition table on the disk was failed to update as the partition table is being locked by other programs, please close other programs and retry.

What does the Information Code mean? Please refer to: https://www.diskpart.com/help/errorcode.html

I will also try to re-plug the HDD later. But for now I would need some more ideas that would potentially help fix it.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

what does Partition Assistant show for drive status before attempting to initialize?
any partitions, empty space, etc?

have you attempted just deleting everything on it and re-formatting the entire disk?

 

[iPeekYou]

My guess is the HDD is toast. I don't know which exact model you have, but in my experience, older HDDs tend to die easier from sudden power loss compared to newer ones. Where I live it's pretty common to have sudden blackouts (yup, it sucks) and everytime I had an old HDD (plain white sticker, unlike the colored ones of today), it fails after 2-3 blackouts.

Honestly, if you have to shut off the PC forcibly, do so through the power button. Hold it until the PC shuts off completely, might take bit longer than you think. That way, the software (OS) is killed abruptly, but the hardware and power aren't. You might corrupt the data, but you'll spare the hardware. At most, your Windows drive (and programs running at that moment) is corrupted, but I figure it's better than killing the drive itself. At least downloading applications is practically free compared to replacing drives.

The dead drives that I had always exhibited the same symptoms: either undetected through Diskpart or other softwares, constantly failing chkdsk or most recovery/diagnostic from other softwares, or flat out not showing up in BIOS despite being powered and spinning.

 

[WulfgarTheSavage]

what does Partition Assistant show for drive status before attempting to initialize?
any partitions, empty space, etc?

have you attempted just deleting everything on it and re-formatting the entire disk?

In my Partition Assistant app, at the top, the disk is shown as:

Unknown
Disk Unreadable

While in the bottom section it is shown as:

Disk 0
Basic MBR
0.00KB

And yes I tried using diskpart to fix it and cmd said it was cleaned successfully. Probably restarting the PC might make it appear after cleaning it?

 

[WulfgarTheSavage]

My guess is the HDD is toast. I don't know which exact model you have, but in my experience, older HDDs tend to die easier from sudden power loss compared to newer ones. Where I live it's pretty common to have sudden blackouts (yup, it sucks) and everytime I had an old HDD (plain white sticker, unlike the colored ones of today), it fails after 2-3 blackouts.

Honestly, if you have to shut off the PC forcibly, do so through the power button. Hold it until the PC shuts off completely, might take bit longer than you think. That way, the software (OS) is killed abruptly, but the hardware and power aren't. You might corrupt the data, but you'll spare the hardware. At most, your Windows drive (and programs running at that moment) is corrupted, but I figure it's better than killing the drive itself. At least downloading applications is practically free compared to replacing drives.

The dead drives that I had always exhibited the same symptoms: either undetected through Diskpart or other softwares, constantly failing chkdsk or most recovery/diagnostic from other softwares, or flat out not showing up in BIOS despite being powered and spinning.

Thanks for the reply. I might just buy a new HDD or maybe get an SSD. It was 500GB afterall, so not that big of a deal. Though I will be more careful in the future.