After performing Defragmentation and rebooting, the machine would not recognize the existing hard drive. An error saying "Disk read failure" appears right after BIOS checks. We have tried booting from a bootable CD in an effort to run a scandisk on the HD, but the drive is still not seen. It's as if the drive doesn't exist. We also have tried connecting the drive to another computer, running WIN 2K. The BIOS on that computer can detect the drive, WIN 2K can see the drive in the "Windows Explorer" window, but when trying to access the drive, it gives access errors and does not show the data on the drive. Please help! Thank you.

It sounds like the HD is shot, but if it's a brand name, some manufacturers have speific diagnostic programs for their drives which give conclusive informaion. It happened to me on a Western Digital drive the bad news it told me was the drive was bad, the good news was it was still under warrantee. They sent me new one for free after using it for over 2.5 years.

Mine is a Western Digital as well - 1.5 yrs old. So there is no way to recover the files? I heard of some companies doing recovery for a fee.

I've heard instances where you put your HD in the freezer. After it gets good and icy, put it in computer and you can recover data (doesn't always work). When all else fails, beat the %*#$! out of it!!!

Yes, there are file recovery services, but it's rather expensive. Probably not worth it for home users. It does sound like the hard drive is shot, as everyone else figures too. I don't know about Western Digital, but Seagate has a fantastic disk diagnostic utility program. I bet WD does too. Blank CDs - fifty cents Using them to back up data - Priceless Sorry for your loss, Bob

No dont do that freezer thing. It is more damaging to a HDD than anything If it is frozen or even cold and you run it condesation(or small water particles) can build up in the drive making it more useless than before. Also the Western Digital may not continue the warranty if that was the case.

Sometimes the freezer method ~does~ work. If the hard drive is 'broken' there's no harm in making it 'more broken' unless they're going to send it off for data recovery. They already said it's no longer under warranty...