[chrisf-1]

Hi again everyone I have just tried to boot up my old Dell dimension which I shut down properly about a month ago and it will not boot I went into set up and it tells me sata hard drive not found can anyone give me a clue what to do in laymans terms any advice gratefuly recieved Thanks Chris

[RandyL]

You could boot into the BIOS and see if the drive shows there or look inside to see if the cables to the drive are solidly connected. I usually disconnect them then reconnect them.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Chris, can you go inside the case, and check all connections to the drive, remove and replace each to make sure connections are OK.

If no good, can you go back into set up and tell us everything in the message on screen, it may give us a clue. Also can you navigate round set up and find out what order the boot sequence is set to, is the SATA drive first or one of the CD/DVD drives or even a floppy drive first?
Nev.

[chrisf-1]

Hi thanks for the replies I will do it tomorrow as the base unit is sharing the same equipment as this one, tomorrow I will plug the laptop in so I can stay in touch I have checked all the connections and they appear good.Thanks Chris

[chrisf-1]

Hi again everyone and thanks for the replies. I have checked the connections to the hard drive and evrything else visible and everything seemed good so here goes with what it gives me on set up from top down
dell dimension 8300 series
intel pentium 4 processor 2.66ghz
level 2 cache 512 intergrated
bios version AO1
service tag H9SQQ0J
SYSTEM TIME CORRECT
DATE CORRECT
DRIVE CONFIGURATION ENTER
HARD DISK DRIVE SEQUENCE ENTER
BOOT SEQUENCE ENTER
In fact everything else on the list is standard and they all say enter
I have now entered drive configuration and a box saying
diskette a/; 3.5inch 1.44 mb
sata primary drive unknown device
sata secondary drive unknown device
primary master drive " " " "
primary slave drive " " " "
secondary master drive cd-rom device
secondary slave drive " " " "
ide drive UDMA on
That is about as much as I can tell you on one occasion I managed somehow I do not how to get further in and it told me hard drive not found

I am only a beginner experience wise and also at typing woul you believe it has took me about 45 minutes to type this, anyway thanks everyone for your help and I hope I have given you enough info to make some sense out of. I realy could do with firing this system up as there a lot of info on it I need to recover Thanks again Chris

[danzil]

Do you know for sure that your hard drive is SATA and not IDE.
if it is sata what else do yo have connected via sata, same if it is IDE.

maybe worth changing the cables...

seems strange both primary and secondary are unknown..

regards
danzil

[chrisf-1]

I do not know how to find out which hard drive it is I can only get the information I have posted but it is starting look like being scrapped but I cant complain I've had it from new over 5 years ago it has never given trouble before I thought it was bullet proof any suggestions gratefully received for recovering info on the hard drive but it appears to be inactive. Thanks Chris

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Chris, if all you want is the data off the drive, you could try removing the drive and connecting it to another computer as an external drive using an adapter cable. This will convert the SATA to USB. Hopefully you should be able to get the data that way.

Alternatively to a cable, a full caddy that you can fit the drive into, and make it a permanent external drive, can also be done if not bothered about the rest of the old computer..
Let us know if you wish to try either, and I or one of our other members can provide links to sites where adapters or caddies are available.
Nev.

[chrisf-1]

Hi thanks again everyone and i would be grateful for the links but I really do think it is the hard drive that has died so maybe the wire adapter prove it one way or another Thanks Chris

[chrisf-1]

Hi again everyone I have removed the hard drive from the computer and it an IDE hard drive I will list below what is says on the label
WD Caviar western digital WD200
WDenhanced IDE hard drive
drive parameters LBA390625000
S/N WMACK1824374
MDL W02000JB-75QUAD

DS/N MY - 12555-349-0060
DP/N 07U480
Rev ADO C/O MY

HDD S/N: WD-WMACK1824374

I would be really grateful if someone could tell me how to retrieve data from it, it is lifeless in the computer which is not seeing it I know its there I have used it for the past 5 years. Also will I be able to use one of the caddies for this as the size is 4 inches across Thanks Chris

[Tootech]

If your drive is not seen in the BIOS, and it is not a cable or mainboard fault, specialist data recovery is probably needed.

Drives that are that far gone won't be recoverable with a USB adapter cable.

UK cost is between £300 and £500 plus vat. If you need a recommendation let me know.

[chrisf-1]

Thats tooo heavy for me i can buy a new computer for that money looks like I will have to start again Thanks Chris

[danzil]

hi
if the drive is powered up and spinning without clicking etc, there is still a good chance of getting your data off the drive.
in my honest opnion i would try an external caddy, nad some decent recovery software. like ontrack, or easus.

it is wirth a try.
well it does all depend on how much your data is worth to you...
a caddy will cost around £30-£40 or £15ish online.
and there is some GREAT free recovery software out there.
let us know how you are going to proceed.
regards
danzil

[chrisf-1]

hi danzil thanks for the reply but i am giving up on this i have found a lot of what i wanted pics etc on my usb stick from when i put them there intending to put on my laptop but it took up to much space and luckily i did not clear it Chris

[Tootech]

if the drive is powered up and spinning without clicking etc, there is still a good chance of getting your data off the drive.
in my honest opnion i would try an external caddy, nad some decent recovery software. like ontrack, or easus.

I have a different opinion to Danzil - if you cannot see the drive in the BIOS either the controller board is faulty, or the firmware in the SA is faulty. A caddy won't help.

[RandyL]

I agree with tootech and danzil although they both know more then I ever will.

You have an IDE. It does not show in the BIOS.
Unknown SATA probably means that the BIOS supports it but you don't have one.

If it can't find the primary IDE it's probably going to the next supported drive in the boot sequence is my guess which of course is a SATA drive which you don't have. Unknown device usually denotes that fact.

Although it should not make a difference but it might go back into the BIOS and make sure of the boot sequence. That is make sure if you have both SATA and IDE listed that your IDE is set to boot before the unknown SATA. Or if possible remove the SATA from the boot sequence alltogether.

I too fear the drive has failed. A new IDE drive and reinstalling is probably the only option at this point. Well at least the most likely option. Not sure if your recovery disks will work on a SATA as yours shipped with an IDE. Or if you even have SATA connectors.

DATA RECOVERY

Often times possible by connecting via a caddy on a failed computer such as with a MOBO fault or sometimes with a FAILING hard drive. The problem is that if a drive is too far gone or depending on what caused the drive failure it won't help.

If it is a drive problem due to the drive itself it might take a specialist and be extremely expensive as Tootech said unless the fault is repairable but even then if it is it would not be cheap.

As danzil said a caddy might be an option if the drive has not totally failed or if it is related to other computer faults. But even then if it is not you are out of the money on that.

Since it is an IDE another option to try is to slave the original desktop drive to another desktop computer and copy the data over but you will need to connect the ribbon cable properly and set the jumper pins to slave on the secondary drive.

This would preclude the minimal cost of a caddy but in your particular case I doubt it would help as I suspect your drive is too far gone.

But as you said the good news is that you already have most of what is important to you backed up on external media. Always a good idea.

In my opinion a new hard drive and a reinstall might well fix your problem although there are no absolute garauntees just probabilities.