Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 - Not detected in BIOS

[DragonUK20002]

I purchased my computer in Oct 2008 from Overclockers and it has ran great. I shut down my PC correctly on Saturday but on the Sunday when I went to switch it on the PC would not boot up. A message appeared saying that I must insert a boot device and after going into the BIOS I was able to confirm that my HDD had not been detected.

I checked connections, swaped connections about on the SATA sockets and still it would not detect. It would only detect my DVD drive which I also removed and attempted to boot with just the HDD plugged in.

I've looked into this and it appears to be a common issue cause by a Firmware update - I took my PC to OC this morning hoping they could fix it but sadly I will need to go to Seagate directly to fix this.

I was wondering if anyone else had experienced a similar issue and how it was resolved. Is Seagate my only option? From doing some internet research i've seen varying stories of how difficult it had been for people to resolve this. My main concern is that I want to retrieve the data on the HDD and while I am aware that Seagate apparently do offer a recovery service I was wondering if anyone else knew a better way to resolve this? Do other smaller firms have better success perhaps fixing this/retrieving the data?

Thanks

 

[kmufc77]

yes i had the same drive and firmware as you have.

Seagate exchanged the drive for a new drive with updated firmware.

I cannot see how anyone can retrieve the data im afraid as the dodgy firmware on the drive needs to updated to a new one for the drive to be even seen in the bios/windows.

Im not even sure if seagate can even retrieve data for you maybe worth you contacting them.

I think they have a RMA centre in Derby UK and The Netherlands where i had to send my drive back to

Edit:

You could try this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-078-FC&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=167

But like i said i cant see how data can be recovered unless the firmware is sorted may be worth a shot though

 

[DragonUK20002]

Thanks for the response - According to the following link Seagate offer a recovery service however I am unsure whether this is still in effect.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/18/barracuda_firmware_upgrade_and_recovery/

My main problem at the moment aside from having lost a great deal is being without a working system. I am tempted to purchase a new HDD, install it and use it as my main and meanwhile hope that I can recover my data.

My question is however, if I use a new HDD and install Vista (which is what I had initially) could I use my older HDD (on the off chance it can be fixed) in the future? In other words having two HDD's both with Vista, but I will want it to boot one of them eventually.