BleepingComputer.com: Hard Drive Not Detected in Bios or Windows

Recently my Dad bought a 1TB Hitachi SATA for his computer. He installed it and was able to store some data on it (was not using it as a boot drive). The drive started making a thumping noise and then the drive was no longer recognized by the bios or the Windows XP Home (Svc2). I have burned an ISO of Hitachi's Test Disk but I am wondering if this was a waste of time since I don't understand how a hard disk that is not recognized by the bios or the operating system can be scanned? Should I just contact Hitachi for RMA?

I'd appreciate any help you can give me. He has an Asus board and AMD processor and SATA drives are supported. He just wants to use it as a secondary drive and possible recover some of his files. I tried my Seagate 160 SATA on his set up and there are no problems -- although I cannot get my bios or OS on my computer to recognize the Seagate no matter what I do.

My Dad is an eternal computer tinkerer and knows about changing cables, etc and connections. He is not a novice. But for some reason, this drive just won't cooperate. It did not come with a jumper and supposedly SATAs don't need jumpers but I have read posts saying that some have added a jumper and then an uncooperative drive worked. I don't know if they were talking about a jumper on MOBO or on the drive.

Edited:

Run the Hitachi extended disk diagnostic on the drive.

The diagnostic runs from the CD/floppy...so it doesn't matter whether the drive is recognized by Windows.

Not likely that an RMA would be issued for a drive...without the results of the manufacturer's diagnostic (in my experience).

Louis

This post has been edited by hamluis: 19 June 2009 - 11:46 AM

Thanks so much for your response! I'll give it a try...