dead hard drive...maybe

Jesusfrk611

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I have a system I setup for file sharing over the network, like a server basically. When lightning hit in the area, it managed to only take out the server's file sharing hard drive (theoretically, since it went out that day, I can't really prove the lightning took it out). The rest of the system still worked (but I replaced the PSU for good measure). The hard drive is a Western Digital 250GB SATA that's only like 4 months old, so still under warranty. The deal is, when I have it in a system and try to boot Windows, it hangs at boot. It did this with the 3 systems I tried it in. However, it gets power and spins up as well as the BIOS detects it is there. I actually have DBAN running to erase the drive and it's at 55% now w/ no probs. It just will not run at all in Windows. I didn't try Linux, so I dunno. What do you think? If it doesn't work with a format, I will try RMA since it's got warranty. But I wanted some thoughts on this. I already bought a 500GB replacement for it to get the sever running again, but I might as well get an RMA if nothing else works.
 
It sounds like your drive is hosed. I've had a couple of bad drives act like that. You connect them to any working system, and the computer refuses to boot. An RMA is in order.
 
Alright, I was just curious if it was possible to save it. I'll try to boot with it in a system after a format. If not, RMA for sure. I've just never had a drive not work, but be recognized by BIOS and be able to be formatted. I was mostly formatting because I had stuff on there that I didn't want others to really get their hands on (DBAN does 3 passes for formatting). Since I didn't really lose much of that data because I had it all backed up on various other drives of other systems, it wasn't a big deal I lost all the data on that drive. Anything I lost I won't miss much.

So I just got it formatted and it's now working... I'll try it out for a bit and if it continues working I won't bother RMAing it. I can't figure out why it decided to stop working for awhile though. My desktop's main drive decided to stop booting at the same time on that day. It showed signs of needing a reformat though, I just was a procrastinator and put it off until then... It worked the first time around with a bootsector repair, then it stopped. Hooked it up to a diff system to get the stuff I needed, then just did a reformat and all was fine. I was just having a really bad day with my computers...lol.
 
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