Apparently the hard drive head has crashed onto the platter because it makes repetitive funny noises. Is there anything i could do to recover my data.\n\nHow can I avoid this from happening again?
132242
There are two ways that immediately come to mind, fixing it yourself with Norton Utilities, or sending it to a company like DriveSavers.\n\nNorton Utilities has the ability to scan a crashed hard disk and allow you to copy the contents to another drive. This works well with hard disks with "soft" crashes (The FAT table is corrupt, the drive forgets where files are)\n\nIf the drive has physically crashed, your only option may be a company like DriveSavers. They actually take your drive into a clean room, remove the platters, and put them into a new mechanism, then try to recover your data. They have a high success rate, but they often charge hundreds, if not thousands to recover your data.\n\nAs for preventing this, other than not kicking or dropping your computer, there isn't much you can do to prevent a hard disk crash. Always make sure your critical data is backed up!
590325
Hehe, your harddrive took a dump on you... :P  Get a new computer!
118952
I've seen this message before and the cause was the cable being used to connect the hard drive to the motherboard.  Try to swap out the cable and see if it works.  \n\nOtherwise, you might have a hard drive problem.
147896
You may have just broke an IDE pin in that case soldering a new pin would work. But if you opened the drive so you can see the platters then it's toast.\nHard drives are made in a clean enviroment where they enter the roon through an airlock and wear clean white suits.\nIf you opened it then you might just as well toss it it's toast. On the up side the platters make for cool wind chimes.\nAnd you can have fun with the magnets that control the arm of the read/write heads. They are powerful little things. Just be carful when playing with them. I had one magnet on the back of my hand and one on the front and they stuck to my hand I slid them down to my fingers and they clamped on the webbing between my fingers and tore a chunk of skin off. That was painful.
582989
Why not just go to a Electronics Store and just buy a new hard drive. It doesnt matter if its new or old, the wire that connects them does.
9212
you probably need a new disc drive, your old one is probabaly broken...  try buying a new one...
464712
you need a windows disc. something has happened to you system files on the HD, it might jsut be a cable came out though, have a check when the computer is turned off.
231683
do a cold boot (switch off completely, count 10 for the hard disk to stop, then switch on again)\n\nif that dont fix it have you just installed new software\n\nif you aint then do a system restore (Start/help and support/pick a task/system restore)
495515
Maybe your hard drive needs to be de-fragged?
82646
I would suggest you right click on my computer and go to manage and then that will bring up a console and you go to disk management and you should be able to see what it says about your external drive ie if its un allocated or w/e. Post back with that info, btw did this hard drive work correctly in your other computer before it broke down or did it break down because the hard drive broke down or what ?
583424
Even if it's brand new it could be broken. My friend is a PC tech, and it happens to him alot. He just grabs a new one off the shelf and it's fine. Do you have another CD ROM drive you could put in there just to see if that one works.\n\nAlso Things just don't stop working for the hell of it. So if it did work before, then it's probably broken.
405631
take it to any technician. dont do anything yourself u dont know about. u r facing this problkem b/c it fell down. harddisk is most likely a sensitive equipment. always be careful with it.
573258
sounds like the drive is bad, get a replacement
425906
I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.\nSome RAM/ hard drive problems can be easily fixed yourself by using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful
479443
Hmm, i think it's a dead end. Buy a new hard drive and do not buy Dell PCs next time, they are ready to blow up. Or try booting up in a few days, there may still be miracles. If so, quickly backup all data .
456328
u have to format the hdd.. if no go, u will have to debug the hdd... u can get the debugging instructions from the internet..\n\nbut first try with a diff cd., maybe the cd has issues.. otherwise, the problem is with the hdd..
599423
well my first thought is....it over-heated and died.\n\nHD's produce heat, quite a bit of it actually, so it being in an external HD case, when it's meant to NOT be covered, probably caused the temp to rise and your HD to burn out, or it could just be normal  mal-function, and the drive could just be done.\n\nalso sometimes it's connectors etc....there are many things to troubleshoot when it comes to a HD not functioning properly