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Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9 SATA 120 GB HDD not recognized by windows, read error #7

When I connect this drive on my HP m7060n PC, (which already has a 200 GB WD SATA hard drive connected as primary w/ OS) the Maxtor is not recognized. When I enter the BIOS setup, the drive is recognized. In the device manager of My Computer the drive is recognized but will not populate. When I run the BIOS diagnostics on this drive it says that it has a read error #7.

The 120 GB Maxtor drive was pulled from a Dell Dimension, where it was the primary, holding the OS. After the owner of the hard drive tried to remove a virus, they corrupted Win XP. I said that I'd take the drive and try to copy some of the cherished videos and pictures (which, of course, were not backed up!). I try to use Disk Manager (run > diskmgmt.msc) which will not recognize the drive at all.

On the HP m7060n PC there is no RAID array, just the single 200 GB WD HDD. I have also tried different SATA ports (the primary is connected on #1).

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get this to work to save the files? Would there be any special software to try and recover the files?

lanehart

ASKER

For the record, I do not have any idea what the READ ERROR #7 on the diagnositics means. :-D

SOLUTION

jamietoner

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lanehart

ASKER

Jamie- Will "Getdataback" be able to "see" the drive if it is not recognized in Disk Management or My Computer?

jamietoner

I heard it will some times. If you get the free trial you'll be able to tell before you buy it.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

nobus

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lanehart

ASKER

Hello all:

Fortunately I ran the "GetDataBack" program and was able to recover the files! They are now safe on my hard drive and DVD's.

Now I come to another question... When I ran get data back, as well as the before mentioned diag. it said that there was a read sector error. Is it correct that I should just purchase a new hard drive and never use this one again?

Would it even be possible to reformat this drive, since it won't show up in drive management?

Thanks for your help.

jamietoner

The drive is toast and will need to be replaced. You can use it again, but not for storage, more like a paperweight. :-)

lanehart

ASKER

Thanks, Jamie. Any idea as to what went wrong with the drive? This problem happened after she attempted to follow directions from PC-Cillin as to removing a virus from the PC. Proceeding that, the computer would boot to the login screen and completely lock up. Maybe it reached the error sector and just stopped? Any idea why? Would it be something that we could turn in to the warranty support?

I will split the points between both of you Jamietoner and Nobus. Thanks for your help in this matter.

Lane

jamietoner

I doubt that anything she did killed the drive (unless she dropped or hit it), if the drive is still under warranty maxtor should replace it.

lanehart

ASKER

Perhaps, then, it was just a coincidence that the drive went bad at the same time that she got a virus?

jamietoner

I would say it was a coincidence i have never seen a virus take out a hard drive, and i have never heard of one that could.

lanehart

ASKER

I agree, (I wasn't suggesting that a virus could take it down). Even if it weren't the virus, would there have been something that she could've deleted to render it permanently useless. Sorry to exhaust this, just interested.

jamietoner

Nope not that i have ever heard of.

nobus

before getting rid of the disk, i would test it with maxtor's utility :
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.8db0c3d6932ced37294198b091346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FSupport%2FSoftware+Downloads%2FView+By+Category%2FDesktop+Storage%2FDiamondMax+Family

this will show you the status of the drive.