My HDD keeps dying/disconnecting

[Joachimlindegaard]

My HDD keeps dying/disconnecting

So my computer has just started randomly crashing. i get the critical_process_died screen, and when i boot my pc up again, my HDD cant be found.

ive fixed this once, where i took the HDD out, and putted it back in.

i hope you can help

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, JoachimLindegaard.

Well you could try that again, although if it's not a loose connection, it most probably won't work. Try the drive with a different computer to see if you can get to your data and back it up. If that doesn't work, try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if the drive is properly recognized and if you can recover your files. If that doesn't help as well, you could try some data recovery programs: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html and http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm. And if worse comes to worst and you're unable to retrieve any of your data, perhaps a data recovery company might be the best option in your case.
On the other hand, if you don't need to recover data, connect the HDD to a different computer and download the manufacturer's diagnostics tool. Run some tests on HDD, to see if any errors or bad sectors pop-up.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD