3TB HDD Detected in bios? Dead?

[Flashie]

I have an ASUS B85M-Gamer motherboard that picks up a potentially dead 3TB on SATA3 (Which it is plugged into) but data-recovery nor windows detects it.
Stellar Phoenix - Doesnt detect it

HDSentinel - Doesnt detect it

Windows Explorer - Doesnt detect it

Disk Management - Doesnt detect it

 

Theres roughly 2TB of games on the drive. They told me that it stopped working right after a restart

 

***EDIT***

It was an External Seagate 3TB HDD; I tested with a different PSU and different USB cable to no avail (Besides not allowing the test-bench not to boot the first time it was plugged in)
I took it out of its enclosure and connected it up to my test-enclosure; to no avail

I plugged it in directly to the test bench via SATA - But thats when it showed up in the BIOS but not in windows.

 

My question is if there is anything else i can do to confirm that it is dead. There are no audible clicks or noise btw (besides the spinning platters)

[Leonard]

@Flashie

 

The MOBO isn't special in that all external HDDs are seen/registered when you take it out of the enclosure and plug it directly to a MOBO's sata, your problem is the formatting the enclosure did to the drive. Most of those enclosures put specific code to the boot order just to fuck with the customer in case of some problem like the one you are having. Once a HDD shows in the BIOS then it is fine but the trick is to get it to show in windows and most times only a quick format will do that then you use a program like Recuva to get back all the data,  be warned it is tricky.

 

Now you can connect the dive to the MOBO via sata then make sure it shows in the BIOS as you have done already then boot into windows go to Disk Management and see if the disk shows and what is the health of it. If the color associated with it is black then it is definitely the bloody enclosure's format feature that is causing this problem. Now from there you can right click the disk in question then hit properties, there you can try to run a disk check on the Tools tab for the disk and then see if you can open it . If you do get it to open, copy all your files then reformat the disk and just leave it in the PC as an extra disk then check the health of it.

[Flashie]

38 minutes ago, Leonard said:

@Flashie

 

The MOBO isn't special in that all external HDDs are seen/registered when you take it out of the enclosure and plug it directly to a MOBO's sata, your problem is the formatting the enclosure did to the drive. Most of those enclosures put specific code to the boot order just to fuck with the customer in case of some problem like the one you are having. Once a HDD shows in the BIOS then it is fine but the trick is to get it to show in windows and most times only a quick format will do that then you use a program like Recuva to get back all the data,  be warned it is tricky.

 

Now you can connect the dive to the MOBO via sata then make sure it shows in the BIOS as you have done already then boot into windows go to Disk Management and see if the disk shows and what is the health of it. If the color associated with it is black then it is definitely the bloody enclosure's format feature that is causing this problem. Now from there you can right click the disk in question then hit properties, there you can try to run a disk check on the Tools tab for the disk and then see if you can open it . If you do get it to open, copy all your files then reformat the disk and just leave it in the PC as an extra disk then check the health of it.

Thanks for the reply. When i connected it up earlier to my test-pc one of the steps i followed was to go into Disk Management but to no help to the situation, showed only the boot SSD.
I've packed away the HDD back into its enclosure for now - but am curious as to your first step, the Recuva program. What would the chances be that it would show up in there but not through windows or other data recovery applications?

Since the initial post i've attempted to get the drive to atleast show up through running TestDsk (Only found the SSD); and to boot onto my windows-install stick - select custom on windows install and try to view the hard drive there - That also only showed the SSD, but the BIOS still shows the HDD being picked up on Sata port 3

[Leonard]

2 hours ago, Flashie said:

Thanks for the reply. When i connected it up earlier to my test-pc one of the steps i followed was to go into Disk Management but to no help to the situation, showed only the boot SSD.
I've packed away the HDD back into its enclosure for now - but am curious as to your first step, the Recuva program. What would the chances be that it would show up in there but not through windows or other data recovery applications?

Since the initial post i've attempted to get the drive to atleast show up through running TestDsk (Only found the SSD); and to boot onto my windows-install stick - select custom on windows install and try to view the hard drive there - That also only showed the SSD, but the BIOS still shows the HDD being picked up on Sata port 3

Your very welcome.

 

The way it works in Recuva is you take disk and format it then the disk will show and you run Recuva to find all the files/data then you tell the program to recover them to a specified folder and then you will get your stuff. Now with the amount of data you want to recover it can take some time as in hours to days. Now with the disk in its current condition it is very likely it would show but there is a chance it may not, you never know until you run it. In my experience Recuva has shown disk that didn't show in windows before, especially with external disks. Another program that works in my experience is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery but you must have a serial to access the full program. TestDisk is good too but i find it to more miss than hit so i don't use it. 

 

The fact that the disk is showing in the BIOS tell me that the issue is in the disk's boot record that the enclosure made, as i said before. Now there arr some MOBOs that do not show a disk if the controller is not installed once it is the secondary controller like how ASUS MOBOs have both Intel and Asmedia sata controllers.

 

Have you tried the old school method of disk checking and recovery, in the command prompt with the diskpart commands? You might be able to import data if the problem isn't too severe.

[Flashie]

6 hours ago, Leonard said:

Your very welcome.

 

The way it works in Recuva is you take disk and format it then the disk will show and you run Recuva to find all the files/data then you tell the program to recover them to a specified folder and then you will get your stuff. Now with the amount of data you want to recover it can take some time as in hours to days. Now with the disk in its current condition it is very likely it would show but there is a chance it may not, you never know until you run it. In my experience Recuva has shown disk that didn't show in windows before, especially with external disks. Another program that works in my experience is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery but you must have a serial to access the full program. TestDisk is good too but i find it to more miss than hit so i don't use it. 

 

The fact that the disk is showing in the BIOS tell me that the issue is in the disk's boot record that the enclosure made, as i said before. Now there arr some MOBOs that do not show a disk if the controller is not installed once it is the secondary controller like how ASUS MOBOs have both Intel and Asmedia sata controllers.

 

Have you tried the old school method of disk checking and recovery, in the command prompt with the diskpart commands? You might be able to import data if the problem isn't too severe.

Hey again;

I've already run:
Recuva

Testdsk

Stellar Phoenix

Diskpart

Windows-installer

Windows-explorer

HDSentinel

 

Only my SSD shows up in all the windows applications, but as soon as i check the Bios the 3TB HDD shows up there as a SATA device which i can even choose to boot from (Which does nothing as there isnt nor ever was an OS on it).

[Leonard]

21 minutes ago, Flashie said:

Hey again;

I've already run:
Recuva

Testdsk

Stellar Phoenix

Diskpart

Windows-installer

Windows-explorer

HDSentinel

 

Only my SSD shows up in all the windows applications, but as soon as i check the Bios the 3TB HDD shows up there as a SATA device which i can even choose to boot from (Which does nothing as there isnt nor ever was an OS on it).

When  you ran diskpart did you then run list disk? If so did you see the 3tb hdd there?

 

Can you plug the 3tb hdd into another sata slot?....and i assume you have molex power connected as well.

 

You said you are using a SUS B85M-Gamer MOBO, have you plugged the 3tb disk into the gray or black sata slot?

[Flashie]

On 4/28/2017 at 1:55 AM, Leonard said:

When  you ran diskpart did you then run list disk? If so did you see the 3tb hdd there?

 

Can you plug the 3tb hdd into another sata slot?....and i assume you have molex power connected as well.

 

You said you are using a SUS B85M-Gamer MOBO, have you plugged the 3tb disk into the gray or black sata slot?

Ive tested both SATA6G (Gray) and SATA3G (Black) on the 3TB and it did not detect on both except for the BIOS again. I know for a fact that those SATA ports do indeed work as its a brand new board which i've tested using my boot SSD.
I have run list disk on diskpart - which was the only way that i could be able to see whether the disk showed up or not (It didnt btw, only my SSD showed), nor did any partitions.

The HDD isnt molex powered, its SATA powered

[Leonard]

Once the disk is showing in the BIOS, it shows it is still alive the problem is with the stupid boot files those enclosures tend to use which is why i only use generic external enclosures. It is really frustrating how you can't get it to show in windows not as a healthy disk but just show because once it shows you can reformat it using the quick method and then run Recuva to get your data back. 

 

Have you tried plugging the disk into the sata slot on the MOBO and rebooting the PC a few times with the disk connected? 

[Flashie]

1 minute ago, Leonard said:

Once the disk is showing in the BIOS, it shows it is still alive the problem is with the stupid boot files those enclosures tend to use which is why i only use generic external enclosures. It is really frustrating how you can't get it to show in windows not as a healthy disk but just show because once it shows you can reformat it using the quick method and then run Recuva to get your data back. 

 

Have you tried plugging the disk into the sata slot on the MOBO and rebooting the PC a few times with the disk connected? 

Ive started up the PC both with SSD and HDD plugged into the Mobo; and with the HDD plugged into two different external enclosures through USB 3 on front panel and USB3 of the Mobo

[Leonard]

1 minute ago, Flashie said:

Ive started up the PC both with SSD and HDD plugged into the Mobo; and with the HDD plugged into two different external enclosures through USB 3 on front panel and USB3 of the Mobo

That sucks.

 

In the past and i mean before 2010, i used NTFS data Recovery which had a full toolset and disk functions for this type of problem but there is or wasn't a free version that fully allowed the toolset. The toolset is what you would use to boot on then access the disk and either reformat or scan and recover data. NTFS data recovery is NOT for beginners and is permanent so be careful if you use it.