HDD problem

[RobM]

Got an external drive that windows refuses to see anymore, tried 2 PCs and its the same deal.
Trouble shooting so far:

1. Removed the drive from the enclosure and treated as an internal drive PC will not boot.
2. Set the sata port to hot swap-able PC will not boot.
3. Remove drive PC boots can see all connected drives. (issue drive not connected)
4. With PC on, removed drive E and can see it vanish from explorer.
5. With PC on, connect issue drive and it does not get picked up.

When I connect the power I can feel things inside do their thing and the drive makes the usual sound I expect and the drive warms a little, indicating its not a power problem
Disk management does not see it.
Explorer does not see it
PC refuses to even boot with it connected, despite there being "NO" OS on that drive.
Ruled PC, enclosure and cables.

I need to access it as there is important data on it.

Any suggestions?

 

[trawetSluaP]

Not sure if it's related but last time I had an issue where a drive wouldn't show up I had to use a windows installation disc to reformat the drive.

Worked fine afterwards.

 

[Dawelio]

I'm going out on a limb here, as this is way out of my area of "expertise"... But due to the amount of trouble shooting you've done etc, can't it unfortunately not be the case of the drive have been corrupted and therefore not working, as in showing up?...

 

[RobM]

I'm going out on a limb here, as this is way out of my area of "expertise"... But due to the amount of trouble shooting you've done etc, can't it unfortunately not be the case of the drive have been corrupted and therefore not working, as in showing up?...

I have a feeling it may well be a field drive, whilst the PC is shutdown each night this drive is not and the power was cut at the fuse panel and the drives not worked since.
looks like despite it being under surge protection socket it must have spiked.

 

[grec]

If you've got an oscilloscope nearby (A multimeter would do) you could power it up and see if the traces/pins from the controller board are active or have continuity, this should let you know if anything has burnt out(No signals) or shorted(continuity on separate pin pairs). Usually the connection to the motor is exposed solder connections on the bottom of the HDD so that'd be an easy place to start. Then if you know it's the logic board that's broken and not the discs you should be able to find a replacement for it online.

Edit: There's still a reasonable chance some data corruptuion occured and maybe filesystem corruption which would also cause the drive to not appear in Explorer (But it would still in windows Disk Management), though you can get software tools for fixing errors with stuff like that.