How to slave a HDD?

[123malstrom]

So My w7 has virus damaged boot mbr files. I cannot FIXmbr this drive I tried. so I want to transfer what Data I can off the not booting drive and reformat.

So I place a 320GB drive in my box and clean install a W7 o/s functional. Place the 640 GB into the box as a Second unit Its a WD drive with four pins on the jumper posts I put a Jumper on 7-8 and boot the 320gb.

It reads both drives C and D as 640 the D drive will not read but is mounted a D letter code. the 1986-200 Award BIOs shows Both drives set as master but I Cannot get into the setting to change the Order. I just runs a "Detecting hard drive for a second and that's it. They are set to channel 2 and 3.

the CD drive seems to be set for slave by the bios reading.


Am I setting the jumper right?

 

[Paperdoc]

One uses a jumper to set Master or Slave ONLY on an older IDE drive type. I would bet you have a more recent SATA drive.

On a SATA drive there is NO jumper to set, and there is no such thing as a Master or Slave. If you placed a jumper on some pins on the back edge of a SATA drive, you have changed its proper operation in some unknown way. Those pins are for different rarely-used options that no "normal" use requires. REMOVE that jumper! Then maybe your machine can detect the SATA unit correctly.

 

[123malstrom]

Hi Paperdoc

Yes you are right. These are both Sata Drives. with sata cables. I guess I don't need the jumpers as you say. I m a bit desperate. I remove the Jumper and I boot up the 320 gb drive Fresh O/s. The Computer is able to mount the C & D drives letters. But my large 640 GB with the O/s Boot mbr failure still cannot be read? the Drive just wants me to format the disk with all my data.. I dont have a External Dock to test if I can read data that way.

Is there something I'm missing about trying to access the disk or is it acting like its completely dead? can it be jumpstarted with Unbuntu or other O/s systems?

 

[Paperdoc]

If I understand correctly, this started when you suspected virus damage particularly to the MBR record on the larger (640 GB) HDD. You got a 320 GB HDD and installed Win 7 on it. Now your machine can boot from that smaller drive and use it, but you still cannot read any data from the 640 GB unit. Right so far?

I suggest your next step would be to try testing the 640 GB unit for defects. It is possible it has hardware or software flaws that are causing your problems. Some of the diagnostic suites even have tools that can help fix a few of these. However, you will need to be careful with them. Most have several testing tools that do NO damage or changes to your HDD and are thus safe, but also have other tools that WILL destroy your old data. The diagnostic suites normally will warn you clearly if you try to use anything that harms data so you do NOT use them.

The best tools like this are free from the maker of your 640 GB HDD. If it is from Seagate, go to their website and download their Seatools. If it is from WD, get their Data Lifeguard suite. In each case you have a choice - you can download a Windows application that you install and run, and this can work for you since you have a machine that DOES boot into Win 7. OR, you can download a "for DOS" version that you can boot and run from even if NO disk on your machine can boot it up. The "for DOS" version actually is an .iso file, which is an image of a complete bootable CD. You download that file, then must use CD burning software like Nero that knows how to burn an .iso file to a CD. You burn your own CD. Then you shut down and disconnect other HDD's so that only the faulty one is connected (so you can't make a mistake and use another), place the new diagnostic CD in your optical drive, and set your machine to boot from that CD. It will load a mini-DOS into RAM and present you with a menu of tools. First you select which HDD you want to test (IF you're using the Windows app under Win 7, make VERY SURE you chose the right unit!) and it will tell you basic info about that drive. The first two tests to run are the Short Test and Long Test. Each will tell you about any errors it finds. Write down a few notes about that for reference. Now you have some clues about what may be wrong and maybe what tools to use to try to fix it. If you don't know how to proceed but have error info, you can contact the HDD maker's Tech Support people for guidance. If you choose a "fixer" tool, make SURE you watch for any warning that this particular tool will destroy data - if you get that warning, do NOT let the tool run!

Personally, I prefer the "for DOS" version because it can be used even if you have NO bootable HDD in your machine. But your choice.

If there is no easy way to fix the problem, you may have to go a different route. That is, Data Recovery. There are several third-party tools for this - some free, some not. In general they all work by NOT writing any "fix" to the faulty drive, to avoid any possibility of damaging data. Instead they will try to read your data even though the normal on-disk files for accessing it are corrupted. Whatever they can read you can COPY to another HDD. So, to do this, you need a second HDD that has enough empty space on it to accept all that data. It can be time-consuming, but such tools often can recover most or all of your data. AFTER that is done, if the HDD appears to be OK except for data corruption, you can wipe it clean (this is where it's OK to use the data-destructive tools from the Diagnostic utilities) and then re-Initialize it for use as a storage drive.

 

[123malstrom]

Hi Paperdoc

Thanks for the detailed help! I don't know why I did not think of going to WD 's site also. I was thinking of and looking for third party stuff.

I did start the Lifeguard tool on my first running drive Testing the 640 large drive on quick test the drive fails . I am now doing a long test.

Can you recommend some of the Fix third party free apps?

Can You recommend any of the free data recovery apps?

warmly
Lawrence

 

[Paperdoc]

I have not had to do such repairs to my HDD's, so I cannot recommend any particular suite from experience. Maybe others can. Before you choose, though, I strongly recommend two things.

1. Make good notes of the errors that the short and long tests tell you. They will give clues to what is wrong, and hence what tools to use to fix.

2. Do not use ANY tools to "fix" the failed HDD right away. Many of these will destroy some or all of your old data, and the whole point is you want to get that back! So your FIRST step towards fixing should be to get and use a data recovery package. Many of these can recover most of your data from a drive that Windows can't read, and you must store that on another drive that has enough space for it. Only after you have recovered everything possible should you THEN start to "repair" the failed drive. Among often-used data recovery software packages are:
GatDataBack for NTFS
Recuva
EaseUS

Also look at this review site:

http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Although all that stuff is software you must pay for, there are freeware utilities on the web of varying reliability. You also may find some commercial software that offers a free-for-use-one-time version, although some of those have significant limits on how much of your data they will recover for free.

Before you start, though, you will need some way (maybe from memory) to estimate how much data there is to recover from the 640 GB unit, because you need that much free space on another drive to put it there.

 

[123malstrom]

Well I did the long and short diagnosis with lifeguard .

Short failed twice passed once.
Error Status 7 ( fail read test on element)
CHECK POINT 97

the long
Failed twice
I think it said sector error
Current Sector 1250263727 of 1250263727



I tired "recuva" software but the recuva would not read the drive. it "was unable to determine file system type"

but as the number seems to state only one sector I wonder if just going with the Lifeguard repair choice and taking a gamble might be the best choice?

Opinions anyone ?