Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

[Evilvertigo]

I am having a panic attack. I am running two hard drives on my computer. The first is a wd 150 gig. The second is a seagate barracuda 7200.11 500 gig. I am running windows xp. I am using the wd as the main drive. The seagate as the storage drive. Everything has been fine, been running grate for over five years. All of a sudden today I go to access my storage drive and I get an error saying it is not available. It also does not show up in bios. Not to mention...can only start the computer in safe mode now. Any advice would be soooo appreciated....please...over ten years of photos of my kids on that drive. Yes I know it should have been backed up. ..meant to...you know the story...

 

[Geekasaurus2]

I have found from personal experience that Seagate Barracudas have more sudden failures than any brand I have seen. Tom's hardware may have stats on brands etc but this is just from me working on lots of comptuers.
OK before a total panic attack which could be warranted...
Unplug your main hard drive. take the Seagate out of the bracket.
If the WD is a SATA drive, take the SATA plug out of the WD and plug it into the Seagate while it is laying outside the computer.
Now here is the doctor part...turn on the computer and place your fingers ever so lightly on the hard drive (Like a Ouija board heehee)
Listen and feel. Are there any vibrations at all? Do you hear any whirring or spinning? Is there a knocking sound?
If you hear or feel absolutely nothing, then it is probably dead.
Switching it to the SATA Cable and Port of the working drive will determine if it is a bad or loose cable. Every now and then a port might go bad, but not likely. Hope for the best!
If there are no signs of life, then you need about $800 to give to a forensic recovery company if the pictures are that important to you.