Is my Caviar Black dead?

[yassarikhan786]

Hi guys,

Tonight, when I came home after uni I found that my computer had BSOD'd, with error code 0x0000000F4. I looked up the error code and the information I found indicates that the issue is with the sand force controller.

I thought about updating my SSD's firmware after rebooting my computer, but it took an age to get past the initial windows logo (around 10 mins). After logging in I was presented with a black screen with just the mouse visible. I waited for around half an hour with nothing appearing. I tried safe mode, but it was no good, so I shut off my computer and booted up using a live CD (windows XP).

I started disk part to check if all of my disks were being read as I was unable to open My Computer or even get onto Computer Management. Diskpart showed all of the drives currently connected to my computer including my external hard drive.

I thought it might be an issue with the BIOS, so I downloaded the latest BIOS for my motherboard using my sister's laptop and I flashed my BIOS (I reset everything to default beforehand, just to be safe). After flashing my BIOS the situation had not improved.

At this point I still thought it was an issue with my SSD. Just to be sure it wasn't a fault with my other drives I unplugged both my Caviar Black and my external HDD. Much to my surprise the system booted up and I was able to login successfully. I re-plugged my external HDD and all was fine.

I did install 8 GB of RAM about 4 days ago, but I ran memtest with no errors. I tried booting up with the new RAM removed and the Caviar Black plugged in, but the issue was still the same.

I finally tried my Caviar Black in different SATA ports to no avail. My guess is that the drive is dead. Do you guys have any suggestions? TIA

 

[dugdiamond]

seems like one of the platters has degraded, and it has screwed up the FAT.

the HDD may not be completely dead though, and can be recovered using various apps. but, it may involve retrieving info from the disk from one to another, and then reformatting the drive.
the bad logical sectors will be flagged as unusable, but the drive should still work... but with a smaller capacity.

nothing human-made will ever be perfect

 

[yassarikhan786]

Thanks for the quick response. Is there a particular app/software you would recommend?

EDIT: If I plug in my Caviar Black after booting into windows, the system becomes unusable. In that case, would it be advisable to use another computer?

 

[dugdiamond]

i use forensic toolkit - but it is expensive

the best for your bucks is REMO (linky)

 

[yassarikhan786]

Thanks dug. Regarding the question in my edit, do you have any thoughts?

 

[dugdiamond]

i have a HDD external dock station that takes all drives from IDE upwards.

i wouldnt like to advise you on ruining another rig, unless the data on it is worthless, and it would just be used for this purpose of recovery

 

[yassarikhan786]

I have a dock on my 650D, which I tried using so I'm not sure if the external dock would help?

 

[dugdiamond]

pointless throwing money on a dead horse.

is the data that valuable to justify money being spent on it?

 

[yassarikhan786]

Not at all. I just had some programs and some games installed on it. There were also a few isos and some (not very important) documents. Should I try for an RMA then if possible?

 

[dugdiamond]

here is a free app: linky
although it has good reviews, i have not tried it

 

[yassarikhan786]

Thanks again for the help, I will try "docking" my hard-drive again and try a recovery tool.

EDIT: I just plugged it in now and HD Sentinel is showing the drives health at 96%, with 6 week sectors.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Just an update: I'm using a tool called DiskGenius from Hiren's Boot CD and I can retrieve most of my files

 

[Josh Weston]

Good to hear that you've retrieved your files, i'd hate it if I lost my documents etc.
Makes me realise that I really need to set up a backup solution :/

 

[yassarikhan786]

Good to hear that you've retrieved your files, i'd hate it if I lost my documents etc.
Makes me realise that I really need to set up a backup solution :/

Thanks

 

[seumasbeathan]

Good to hear that you've retrieved your files, i'd hate it if I lost my documents etc.
Makes me realise that I really need to set up a backup solution :/

Exact same with me :/ But you know what? Im actually gonna stop saying I will do it and just do it now

Edit : I see you are a moderator, Nice one Josh

 

[Josh Weston]

If I had a spare hard drive lying around, i'd have already got something going May have to salvage some old computers for drives.

And thankyou kindly, sir

 

[yassarikhan786]

I backed up important files to my external, but I'm thinking about a NAS just in case.

 

[Josh Weston]

Those NAS units are hugely expensive for what they are, aren't they? I was just thinking of setting up a RAID1 with another Caviar Green when I get some more money.

 

[Goldskis45]

I'll talk to my former NASA buddy tomorrow, he was just telling me about this disk recovery freeware that actually gets down to the hardware level to fix drives. If anything it should at least let you get your data... I'm horrible at remembering software names...

 

[yassarikhan786]

I'll talk to my former NASA buddy tomorrow, he was just telling me about this disk recovery freeware that actually gets down to the hardware level to fix drives. If anything it should at least let you get your data... I'm horrible at remembering software names...

Thanks, but I've got all my data back

DiskGenius is really a very good tool. It would still be good to know the name of that tool