Solve : Hard drive not found.?

1.	Solve : Hard drive not found.?
Answer» Hello. I have looked all over the internet trying to get a solution to my computer issue. It's been way too long and I really need help with it because the problem is going from bad to worse. Well, the problem started when I had a corrupted external drive, but I bought Liveboot to fix that problem. Now the problem is worse and I think I made a mistake when I first started out with the external hard drive problem. I accidentally unplugged the USB while the computer was scanning my drive and that's how it became corrupted. I tried to fix the problem by setting my external drive as active. I think that may have been the reason I started seeing errors on my computer, like missing mbr. Now I can't even get to my desktop because the computer does not recognized my hard drive. The Liveboot cd gets me to their desktop, where I can run fixmbr., but it cannot find my hard drive. I've turned my computer off and plugged out my hard drive and then plugged it back in and started the computer. I've went into bios and set the hard disk as the primary boot. I don't know what else to do! How can I detect my hard drive in Bios, should it say "hard drive" in the boot to list, or something else? Also, should I set my hard drive to master in bios? I really don't want to touch anything else that I'm unsure about. Please, someone help me! Thank you in advance!First you have to give details about your system. What you describe is not typical of most PERSONAL computers running Windows. What OS? Desktop? Laptop? New? Old? Have you every replaced the CMOS cell? I have a phoenix computer, fairly new, like 3 years old. It's a desktop. And no, I have never replaced a CMOS cell.Look for dust and loose connections. Change the CMOS cell. What type of Hard drive is in the Desktop? What kind of external hard drive? A few Hard drives sold a few years ago had some issues. But nowadays they do not have five-year warranties. It might be that your hard driven is still inside the old warranty policy. No sure about that. What make and MODEL is it? Both Western Digital and Seagate have free DOS based diagnostics available. Third party programs to repair hard drives and software based, they do not really get deep into the hardware. If a hard drive has major hardware issues, you use if as a doorstop. Quote from: Lexx on August 05, 2012, 04:54:56 PM I have a phoenix computer, fairly new, like 3 years old. It's a desktop. And no, I have never replaced a CMOS cell. I would attach the drive as a internal an boot to your primary drive. Its possible that all the data on the drive is currpted an if its not seeing it likely a failure. I would try another usb PORT to start. If its attached via USB it will not show in the boot order, you need to look for where its seeing all your machines drives an it may show it there as a USB of some kind. Second thing to try is to see if Windows can see it as active not in My Computer but, Disk Mangement. Dont be afraid to ask questionsI previously blew dust off of my internal drive and made sure it was properly seated in it's slot. After that, I still had the same problem. What is the CMOS cell? Like I said in my previous message, I would like to know how to see if bios recognizes my internal drive, what should it say and where should it say it? I can get to my disk management through Liveboot, but it can not see my drive. What else can be done from bios of the Wondershare Liveboot cd that I have? ThanksCMOS cell is your battery for your motherboard the little coin battery very common you can find one at a local store. do this click start type in device manager go to device manager at the selection at the top of box that will give you a list of your hardware, then look for hdd or disk drives left click on it and then right click on it and that will give you a box with a choice of ,update driver software, uninstall, hardware changes or properties. look at properties and see if it says this device is working properly, it probably is then scan for hardware changes then update driver software and then see if that fixes it..................gettingthere Hello everyone. Just an update: Bios does not recognize my c drive. I've inserted the drive into another slot, and still no recognition. I've tried every option that Wondershare has to offer, but it won't recognize the drive. Then I removed the drive to blow it off, when I noticed that one of the gold pins at the bottom of the drive is missing! Could this be the problem? I've never been to aggressive when handling the drive, nor have I ever dropped my computer or the drive, I don't understand where that came from. I have yet to try my drive in another computer, have to find a friend's computer to use. I heard that switching from IDE to SATA has fixed the problem for several people, but like I said, I can't get Bios to see my drive, nor Wondershare Liveboot's device manager or disk management. Before all of this happened, I was getting ntfs errors and I didn't have much space left on my drive. I bought an extra external drive to free up space on my c drive, but before I could even transfer the files, my computer loaded up to the desktop, then froze, then restarted with the "no disk" error. Any more suggestions? What else could be done in bios when it doesn't see the drive? Thanks in advance!30I also forgot to add that in the Wondershare Liveboot's device manager, there are 5 "Generic STORAGE DEVICE- A USB Device" options. I selected the option to "scan for hardware changes" for all 5 of them and then the computer tells me that I have to format the drive before I can use it. I'm not sure which one is my c drive and I don't want to lose my data after formatting. Wondershare Liveboot says that it can recover data from formatted drives, but with the missing gold chip on my HD, I'm afraid to take that chance. Please help!I am not familiar with the paid wondershare liveboot CD but you might wanna try this http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/data-recovery/recover-files-from-hard-disk.html#.UD8PtZbpzR8 What Windows version/edition is installed? Do you have the original disc?I know this is kinda late, but I really do thank you Jason! I have the original disc and I had to reinstall windows xp, only to run into another problem. Now, windows xp is asking me for a password that I never set. I can't access the desktop unless I put the password and there is no way to undo it.Quote from: Lexx on April 08, 2013, 07:54:17 PM I know this is kinda late, but I really do thank you Jason! I have the original disc and I had to reinstall windows xp, only to run into another problem. Now, windows xp is asking me for a password that I never set. I can't access the desktop unless I put the password and there is no way to undo it. I gave you the best thing you could of possiblely done. I hope you didnt pull this drive from another unit an expect it too boot though at first. If nothing is installed just rerun the Windows XP install. Long as you didn't use the key again you should be all right. Remember nothing will be on the unit at all so passwords, programs an IMPORTANT documents are gone. Its best to recall what all you want on there an have it on hand to make the install EASIER. Also, make sure to have the SP Updates. Windows XP doesn't like anything below SP 3

Answer»

Hello. I have looked all over the internet trying to get a solution to my computer issue. It's been way too long and I really need help with it because the problem is going from bad to worse. Well, the problem started when I had a corrupted external drive, but I bought Liveboot to fix that problem. Now the problem is worse and I think I made a mistake when I first started out with the external hard drive problem. I accidentally unplugged the USB while the computer was scanning my drive and that's how it became corrupted. I tried to fix the problem by setting my external drive as active. I think that may have been the reason I started seeing errors on my computer, like missing mbr. Now I can't even get to my desktop because the computer does not recognized my hard drive. The Liveboot cd gets me to their desktop, where I can run fixmbr., but it cannot find my hard drive. I've turned my computer off and plugged out my hard drive and then plugged it back in and started the computer. I've went into bios and set the hard disk as the primary boot. I don't know what else to do! How can I detect my hard drive in Bios, should it say "hard drive" in the boot to list, or something else? Also, should I set my hard drive to master in bios? I really don't want to touch anything else that I'm unsure about. Please, someone help me! Thank you in advance!First you have to give details about your system. What you describe is not typical of most PERSONAL computers running Windows.
What OS?
Desktop? Laptop?
New? Old?
Have you every replaced the CMOS cell?

I have a phoenix computer, fairly new, like 3 years old. It's a desktop. And no, I have never replaced a CMOS cell.Look for dust and loose connections. Change the CMOS cell.
What type of Hard drive is in the Desktop?
What kind of external hard drive?
A few Hard drives sold a few years ago had some issues. But nowadays they do not have five-year warranties. It might be that your hard driven is still inside the old warranty policy. No sure about that. What make and MODEL is it?
Both Western Digital and Seagate have free DOS based diagnostics available.
Third party programs to repair hard drives and software based, they do not really get deep into the hardware. If a hard drive has major hardware issues, you use if as a doorstop.
Quote from: Lexx on August 05, 2012, 04:54:56 PM

I have a phoenix computer, fairly new, like 3 years old. It's a desktop. And no, I have never replaced a CMOS cell.

I would attach the drive as a internal an boot to your primary drive. Its possible that all the data on the drive is currpted an if its not seeing it likely a failure. I would try another usb PORT to start. If its attached via USB it will not show in the boot order, you need to look for where its seeing all your machines drives an it may show it there as a USB of some kind. Second thing to try is to see if Windows can see it as active not in My Computer but, Disk Mangement.

Dont be afraid to ask questionsI previously blew dust off of my internal drive and made sure it was properly seated in it's slot. After that, I still had the same problem.
What is the CMOS cell?
Like I said in my previous message, I would like to know how to see if bios recognizes my internal drive, what should it say and where should it say it? I can get to my disk management through Liveboot, but it can not see my drive. What else can be done from bios of the Wondershare Liveboot cd that I have? ThanksCMOS cell is your battery for your motherboard the little coin battery very common you can find one at a local store. do this click start type in device manager go to device manager at the selection at the top of box that will give you a list of your hardware, then look for hdd or disk drives left click on it and then right click on it and that will give you a box with a choice of ,update driver software, uninstall, hardware changes or properties. look at properties and see if it says this device is working properly, it probably is then scan for hardware changes then update driver software and then see if that fixes it..................gettingthere Hello everyone. Just an update:

Bios does not recognize my c drive.

I've inserted the drive into another slot, and still no recognition.

I've tried every option that Wondershare has to offer, but it won't recognize the drive.

Then I removed the drive to blow it off, when I noticed that one of the gold pins at the bottom of the drive is missing! Could this be the problem? I've never been to aggressive when handling the drive, nor have I ever dropped my computer or the drive, I don't understand where that came from.

I have yet to try my drive in another computer, have to find a friend's computer to use.
I heard that switching from IDE to SATA has fixed the problem for several people, but like I said, I can't get Bios to see my drive, nor Wondershare Liveboot's device manager or disk management.

Before all of this happened, I was getting ntfs errors and I didn't have much space left on my drive. I bought an extra external drive to free up space on my c drive, but before I could even transfer the files, my computer loaded up to the desktop, then froze, then restarted with the "no disk" error. Any more suggestions? What else could be done in bios when it doesn't see the drive? Thanks in advance!30I also forgot to add that in the Wondershare Liveboot's device manager, there are 5 "Generic STORAGE DEVICE- A USB Device" options. I selected the option to "scan for hardware changes" for all 5 of them and then the computer tells me that I have to format the drive before I can use it. I'm not sure which one is my c drive and I don't want to lose my data after formatting. Wondershare Liveboot says that it can recover data from formatted drives, but with the missing gold chip on my HD, I'm afraid to take that chance. Please help!I am not familiar with the paid wondershare liveboot CD but you might wanna try this http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/data-recovery/recover-files-from-hard-disk.html#.UD8PtZbpzR8 What Windows version/edition is installed? Do you have the original disc?I know this is kinda late, but I really do thank you Jason! I have the original disc and I had to reinstall windows xp, only to run into another problem. Now, windows xp is asking me for a password that I never set. I can't access the desktop unless I put the password and there is no way to undo it.Quote from: Lexx on April 08, 2013, 07:54:17 PM

I know this is kinda late, but I really do thank you Jason! I have the original disc and I had to reinstall windows xp, only to run into another problem. Now, windows xp is asking me for a password that I never set. I can't access the desktop unless I put the password and there is no way to undo it.

I gave you the best thing you could of possiblely done. I hope you didnt pull this drive from another unit an expect it too boot though at first. If nothing is installed just rerun the Windows XP install. Long as you didn't use the key again you should be all right. Remember nothing will be on the unit at all so passwords, programs an IMPORTANT documents are gone. Its best to recall what all you want on there an have it on hand to make the install EASIER. Also, make sure to have the SP Updates. Windows XP doesn't like anything below SP 3

Solve : Hard drive not found.?

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