Two bad hard drives?

**butch81385** · October 24th, 2011, 09:40 PM

So, I am working on my friend's desktop. He has a 320gb IDE hard drive and a 250gb SATA hard drive. Windows 7 is currently installed on the 320gb drive, however it only shows up as being about 32gb large. Disk manager says that the windows disk is "360 ??? GB". Booting to a windows cd to look at the partition shows that the drive is only 32 gigs with all space allocated.

The other hard drive shows as a 250gb drive in disk management, but refuses to "initialize" so it won't assign a drive letter. In the bootable partition manager it just says unaccessable.

Any thoughts? 2 bad hard drives? Bad mobo? Other?

**howste** · October 24th, 2011, 10:01 PM

Can you pop them into your system to eliminate any possible hardware issues in his system?

**butch81385** · October 24th, 2011, 10:11 PM

I'm on a laptop. The arcade system doen't have SATA and has been giving me my own issues recently.

**howste** · October 24th, 2011, 10:14 PM

Are they both on the same cable? Can you remove one at a time and see if the other works? Is it safe to assume you've already re-seated the cables and such?

**butch81385** · October 24th, 2011, 10:17 PM

Two cables (one SATA, one IDE). Tried each one individually with the above results. Tried reseating them as well.

**howste** · October 24th, 2011, 10:32 PM

Were they both working recently? Did your friend mention any symptoms before they went bad?

Ummmm... You're welcome to use one of my systems at home to check the hard drives. They're in Utah though, and I'm in Arizona this week.

Or more realistically, do you have another friend with a computer you could use?

**butch81385** · October 24th, 2011, 10:41 PM

He thinks the 320gb drive started having issues in his old system (this was a build of old/leftover parts). The 250gb had worked when last used, but I don't know any other history such as when it was used.

Will have to ask around re: another desktop to test it with.

**truckpuller** · October 24th, 2011, 11:00 PM

How long has this system been running...almost sounds like some one set the partition size to 32gb when it was first formatted just a wag..here.

**butch81385** · October 24th, 2011, 11:35 PM

It's a new install on the system. A small partition was my first guess, but even Cute Partition Manager lists it as a 32gb drive...

Cute Partition Manager saw the second hard drive. However, trying to access it ended with an error saying that the drive is either "not present or not responding".

Really sounding like both drive are bad to me.... Trying to run VIVARD to scan the 32 gig drive but I can't tell if it is running or stuck... just says "Wait..."

**surreal** · October 24th, 2011, 11:40 PM

Sometimes freaky things just happen.. like 2 drives dying at the same time.

**truckpuller** · October 25th, 2011, 01:57 AM

Did he load his mobo drivers and is the bios setup right.. sounds like a bios problem maybe

You might wana try to reload windows and reformat and see what happens.

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · October 25th, 2011, 05:53 AM

Another alternative for those who don't have suitable connections on their machines (or those on LTs, which don't have 3.5" connections available) is to get an external enclosure that you can connect to a computer using the USB port...

Something on this page would do, like this:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX35-AT-SU BLK Aluminum 3.5" Black USB 2.0 External Enclosure

**Detritus** · October 25th, 2011, 06:55 AM

Originally Posted by Nude_Lewd_Man

Another alternative for those who don't have suitable connections on their machines (or those on LTs, which don't have 3.5" connections available) is to get an external enclosure that you can connect to a computer using the USB port...

Something on this page would do, like this:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX35-AT-SU BLK Aluminum 3.5" Black USB 2.0 External Enclosure

FWIW these are good to have no matter what. A drive enclosure was one of the best computer related purchase I've ever made.