Drive Failure
From HelpDeskWiki
There are several causes of hard drive failure, and therefore several solutions for either getting the drive working again or recovering the data from it.
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Software problems
Changes or corruption to the OS configuration can cause problems accessing drives. For example, not all OSes support LBA-48 addressing of 130Gb+ drives. Uninstalling a service pack or uninstalling software such as Intel Application Accelerator (that provides LBA-48 support) would corrupt a large HDD.
Occasionally, a wrong driver or misconfigured driver can cause problems. Try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. If using the OS driver, try the manufacturer's driver, and vice versa.
One way to rule out software as a problem is to use a boot floppy or a Live CD to check the system. Diagnostics are available from most hard drive manufacturers, which will fit onto a bootable floppy. Most Live CDs are designed for either demonstration or diagnostics purposes. Most of these run a variant of Linux, although they're still capable of reading FAT and NTFS drives.
Crashes can cause considerable corruption to file systems. Applications that access the filesystem a lot (such as P2P apps) can sometimes cause corruption if the system crashes while they are running.
Firmware
Changes to the BIOS configuration, which is stored in the CMOS, can keep a system from booting, or even recognizing a drive. Most modern systems leave drives set to AUTO for all settings. If a drive or interface has partially died or isn't very compatible, it may be necessary to set all settings to the lowest value to get the drive to work.
Motherboard or adapter problems
Sometimes the interface chip or connector on the motherboard or adapter will go out. If an adapter is in use, try moving the adapter to another port or slot to see if the problem is with the slot or port. Otherwise, replace the adapter or motherboard.
Cable problems
Sometimes, a cable that appears to be properly-seated needs to removed and reattached, to make a drive work again, presumably due to corrosion. Cables sometimes just plain go bad, and need to be replaced. If replacing a 40-wire cable, replace it with an 80-wire cable, if you can.
Hard drive jumpers
Most modern drives use either 80-wire cables or Serial ATA (SATA) cables. Drives which use 80-wire cables should be set to Cable Select (CS). The position of the drive on the cable will determine whether it is Master or Slave. Most drives on 40-wire cables are set to either Master (MA) or Slave (SL). Only one drive can be set to Master and only one can be set to Slave. If there is only one drive, hard drives should be set to Master and CD-ROM drives are often set to Slave, for compatibility reasons, even though the official ATA specs do not allow that. Most modern drives have the jumpers well-labelled, either on the shroud or on the drive's label.
Physical failure
Sometimes the controller on the drive will fail. One way to work around this problem is to swap the circuit board with one from another drive of the same model and revision. Of course, this could result in two dead controllers, not to mention the problem of finding an identical spare drive.
The heads on old MFM drives used to stick to the platters when they started getting old, so that turning off the computer became a risky endeavor. Modern drives seem to be far less prone to such problems. One workaround for this sticking problem is to sharply twist the drive horizontally while it is powered up and trying to spin. A sharp rap on the corner of a long edge might also do the trick. Once the drive is spinning, any desired data on it should be backed up immediately.
Another trick, which may help with both controller and mechanical problems, is to either freeze or warm up the drive. Putting the drive into a bag and sticking it into a freezer for a while is reported to sometimes work. If the drive is normally running, and failed to start after cooling for a while, then warning the drive up again to operating temperature may help.
Drives which have suffered physical failure should not, of course, be used again.
