Hi there, I know there are probably about a million variations of the same question already answered on here, but I thought I would ask anyway so I can get the exact answer I need! I have a hard drive which seems to have died whilst I was playing around trying to move it to my new PC. When I boot up, the HD is not recognised, and, strangely, neither is the master HD. I hear the HD click once as though it is powering up, but it doesnt start to spin. I have checked jumper settings, tried it with different power leads, different cables, in a different PC etc, all with a similar result. I have heard of techniques such as putting the HD in a freezer, replacing the controller etc etc, but was wondering if anyone can tell me what might be worth trying. I am quite technically minded, and I wouldn't mind "getting my hands dirty" to try and fix it!!

I have also heard that sometimes works. You will need to work fast, because if you get it to spin up it may not stay spinning for long. Before you do that though, was this drive functioning before you moved it? If so, maybe its not dead. You say that you have tried different settings, but you may not have tried the correct ones yet. Give more particulars, especially the part about the existing drive in this machine not being seen. Give all the info you can. Including any other optical drives in the system. Is this a brand name computer?

OK, heres the full story: I have just got a new PC, I wanted to move the master hard drive out of my old PC into the new one, as secondary storage. To do this, I needed to make the slave drive in the old PC(the one that has now failed) a master drive so that the PC would boot (the slave drive has XP Pro on it) - I had previously ran a dual boot on this machine, with the master disk having Win 98 on it. However, when I took the master out, and set the slave to be the master (setting the relevant jumper settings), it just seemed to die completely! So, I tried to put it back how it was, and it still didnt work. Since then I have tried the dead HD in my new PC (a Dell Dimension), and it didn't work in that either. Since then, I have tried all manner of different jumper settings (master, slave, cable select..) on the dead drive, I have tried the drive(s) in different combinations of cable positions, and still no joy. When the machine boots with the dead drive in, neither of my drives are recognised, yet the "live" drive does seem to power up and spin. The dead drive just sits there apparently doing nothing. In this machine, I have two hard drives, one I believe is set as master, the slave(dead) was set to cable select. I also have two CD-drives- a CDRewriter and a DVD/CD drive. Thanks for any advice, and feel free to ask if theres any more info that would be helpful.

When using cable select settings it is important to connect the master with the black plug at the end of the cable and the slave with the gray, blue to MB. Some MB don't recognise cable select. Use master/slave. As far a the dead drive is concerned. Not spinning is not a good sign. Are you sure the molex connector is good. Sometimes after repeated plugging/unplugging I have had those things fail. Try reversing the two molex connectors and see if you still get the same result. If the drive is dead, then as far as the MB is concerned there is only one drive on the cable, therefore the jumpers would be wrong. I would try tapping the dead drive with a screwdriver handle on the side, not bottom, while under power. If you do get it to spin, don't let it stop. Offload you critical data. one other thing, maybe the case is placing some kind of strain on the HD. try running it without it being mounted. How are you running 6 drives? Do you have an add in IDE card or raid?

The Molex connector? - you mean the power connector? How do I reverse these connecters? If you are referring to the power cables, I have tried all the power cables in the PC to no success!! I dont have 6 drives - just 4 - the CDRW & the DVD drives are the 2 optical ones

What I mean is the power connectors. Switch the one you know works to the other drive.

HI all i am some what lost at which drive is bad! is it from old pc, the slave with WIN XP ? when you say the hdd is not recognised , are you talking about in the bios setup? some hdd notable Western Digital if only device must be set as single not master.