A bit of a back story first: Every so often, when I flip my computer on, I get to the XP loading screen and the computer just stops. So I have to turn it off, unplug my SATA drives (XP is on an EIDE) and then I have to restart in safe mode, restart with last known config. a few times, and then I finally can access windows. Then I go back through and plug back in my two SATA drives. Well, my XP drive had started beeping, and then a few days later, loading screen stopped again. So I unplugged, did everything over, hard drive wasn't beeping, got into windows just fine and I plug back in the hard drives. Same thing. Loading screen freeze. I re-do it, but I just plug in one, my maxtor. Everything works just fine, I can see the drive in the BIOS, so I shut down, plug in the Seagate. I can see it in BIOS, just like always (even when I freeze up I can see it in the BIOS) and it freezes the computer. Plus, the XP drive starts beeping again. I got in once or twice with that drive connected, but when I went to the device manager to check on it, it said that the device was missing. I went to reactivate it, and it says that the process failed. Any ideas?
I think you may have failed circuitry on the Seagate drive, or a problem with your S-ATA controller. On occasions mishaps with the Serial ATA bus can cause Kernel halts (i.e. forcing your CPU to not process any instructions), hence causing the loading screen to freeze. if you unplugged it during that screen, the XP loading screen should then carry on. Do you have any other S-ATA cables or ports to try the drive with?
Try using the cable that is on the Maxtor, on the Segate. Switch the Seagate to the port the Maxtor is plugged into. If it works, then it isn't a problem with the Seagate.
Indeed, and it could even be things down to the S-ATA cable. I've had two cables go bad on me and stop recognising drives.
I tried switching ports and cables. Same thing. It's just that one that's not working. Maybe something fried in the Seagate? But wouldn't that make the BIOS stop recognizing it? Or would just a small error in the drive cause problems that only interact with the OS, and not with the BIOS?
Ok, so I plugged in the SATA after windows had already booted up. It can see the drive, but it doesn't have it's drive letter, and it says that the whole system is unallocated...
So...I have a paperweight now, huh? But thats so weird, because if I go to Disk Management, it sees it, I have the 'safely remove ST3160812AS' on the taskbar. I keep getting Window-bubbles and windows that say that a new device has been found.
I used a trial version of GetDataBack for NTFS. Everything is still on the harddrive. I just can't access it.
Well, first, is the fact that the program that I can see the data through is a trial-version. You have to buy the complete package at 60 bucks or so to get it, and not having a job is kinda a factor at this point. The second reason that I cannot access is...I'm not sure. I'm in disk manager, and I can see the drive, and when I right-click, it says either convert to dynamic disk, properties, or help. If I click on the unallocated area to the right i get either new partition, properties, or help. If I right-click from my computer and go to properties, hardware, device manager, and disk drives, I can see the drives serial. I just can't open the drive, and I can't assign it a letter value so I can see it from my computer.
