odd HDD issue

amorphous · 25 Jan 2009 at 21:40

ok, so my computer died other day and i have re-installed windows on my other hard drive and that fine but when i connect my other hard drive (sata) i seem unable to boot into windows and after the vista load bar disappears i only get a black screen, im guessing its something to do with the fact that it has an OS on it but cant see how that effects things as vista is booting off my other hard drive just seems that when i connect it hangs when going into windows..

any ideas

amorphous · 26 Jan 2009 at 10:28

anyone got an idea?

linktoinsanity · 26 Jan 2009 at 11:17

Failing old hard drive? It sounds as if Windows is trying to configure it on boot up but failing. Disconnect your old drive to be able to boot into windows again and put your drive in a USB enclosure and try attaching it that way. It sounds like its a lost cause though to be honest. The USB enclosure idea is your best chance of retreiving data off it that I can think of.

amorphous · 26 Jan 2009 at 11:33

flatmate has one, will try that later thanks for the help

ChrisLX200 · 26 Jan 2009 at 11:38

Is it shown in BIOS OK? If not it's probably faulty, if yes it might be still trying to load the OS from that drive (check drive priority after a failed boot to see if it changed - it seems to happen automatically sometimes).

amorphous · 26 Jan 2009 at 11:59

yeah its visible in bios and tried booting from the old hardrive and it loaded all the way to windows bar again then just continually cycles through that. checked drive priority and set it to the last thing to load up yet still locking up

amorphous · 26 Jan 2009 at 20:01

just tried it in a USB caddy and it now freezes vista up. really weird as i can see it in the device manager before it locks up. anyway i can get the info from this drive at all?

ChrisLX200 · 26 Jan 2009 at 21:52

Doesn't sound good - it's reporting itself to the BIOS OK but it seems data transfer is 'difficult' - might be bad controler. I don't think you can access the SMART messages via USB connection either. I'm supprised it freezes Vista via USB, if it's faulty it should simply fail to connect...

amorphous · 27 Jan 2009 at 11:10

ok now i plugged the hdd in via usb and left if for a while and it just seem to really slow vista down, with patience i can find it in driver manager but cant seem to get it to come up in 'my computer' to transfer data. arghhh

linktoinsanity · 27 Jan 2009 at 13:25

Nah, sounds dead mate. The USB idea was a bit of a long shot.