Hard Drive Stopped Working !

[Nooruddin2k]

Hey Guys! 
I was using my PC today and all was good. I had to remove one of my rams in order to get it exchanged ( which didnt work out ) so I got back and installed the ram back in the PC. I noticed one of my HDD was not showing up in windows. It shows up in disk management but not in windows. Neither is it detected by data recovery software's. When I try to initialize it from disk managment it spits out an error.  Its showing up weirdly in device manager and in cmd. I have really important data in that HDD and I cant loose it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you 

[tikker]

Well the first step is to stop messing with the drive in any way that can potentially write to it. This includes trying to initlaize it.

 

It may be dead, or close to it, as it's not even showing any space on the drive. Does it show up correctly in the BIOS?

  

46 minutes ago, Nooruddin2k said:

When I try to initialize it from disk managment it spits out an error.  Its showing up weirdly in device manager and in cmd.

What kind of error did you get? (Don't try it again if you don't remember).

46 minutes ago, Nooruddin2k said:

I have really important data in that HDD and I cant loose it.

So you have a backup of it somewhere right? I have been here myself and situations like this are exactly why people always hammer so much on backing up important data. If not, you've had the misfortune of learning a harsh lesson about the importance of backups.

 

As a last resort you could try live booting from a Linux USB and see if you can mount the drive (read-only) there.

[Nooruddin2k]

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As a last resort you could try live booting from a Linux USB and see if you can mount the drive (read-only) there.

 

Can you guide through this process. Since its a last resort I wanna try it.

Also will disk part cleaning at least let me use the hard drive again? or has it kicked the bucket?

[Nooruddin2k]

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Does it show up correctly in the BIOS?

It says 0.0Gb in bios aswell. So I'm guessing RIP.

[Applefreak]

1 hour ago, Nooruddin2k said:

It says 0.0Gb in bios aswell. So I'm guessing RIP.

How old is your drive? Is it a SSD or HDD? What was or is the issue with your memory? The safe thing to do is to remove the drive, get an external usb adapter to connect it to your pc, to avoid the system damaging the drive further. If it clicks it is dead, if it a SSD, you won't have clicks but sudden loss of access is not uncommon.

It is unlikely that adding a ram module did corrupt the drive unless you did it while the pc was powered on.

[Nooruddin2k]

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How old is your drive? Is it a SSD or HDD? 

Its 2 years old and its and HDD.

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What was or is the issue with your memory?

There was no issue. I basically wanted one 8gb stick in exchange for 1x 4Gb and 2x 2Gb sticks from a friend. It didnt work out so I came back and put the ram back in the system.

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If it clicks it is dead

Its not clicking. And I've removed the drive for now. 

 

12 hours ago, Applefreak said:

It is unlikely that adding a ram module did corrupt the drive unless you did it while the pc was powered on

Nah! Been working with computers long enough to know that aint good