Did my hard drive just die????

[Papacita]

Apparently, my computer was left running this morning after I left for work. When I got in, the monitor wouldn't light up (it was on and apparently working properly, but it's not detecting my computer) and the computer was running loudly (which really isn't all that unusal to be honest).

 

After not being able to get a response, I powered down and restarted it to see if the problem was fixed...I'm pretty much getting the same thing.

 

TELL ME that my drive didn't just crash on me? I've been working on an important project for the last two days and I absolutely NEED to access the original files ASAP.

[Guest guerillagenius]

try to use it as a slave if you can.

[Papacita]

I only have a vague idea of what that means, and on top of that I have no clue on how to even do that

[MrRant]

Stick the drive in a freezer bag and put it in a freezer. Buy a new hard drive, install Windows and then put the old drive back in the computer as a slave and pull off the files you need.

 

That should hopefully work.

[In Credible]

Depending on the brand (check there website) you need to change the jumper on it to slave. Hook up a another HD as the master (it will boot the OS from this) then the slave should show up as a second hard drive.

[Papacita]

I was able to get someone who knows about this stuff to come out and do the master/slave thing. All my data was recovered. Thanks for the advice.

[In Credible]

No problem, glad you got your data back.

[Guest InuYasha]

I was able to get someone who knows about this stuff to come out and do the master/slave thing. All my data was recovered. Thanks for the advice.

If your hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure, then check the integrity of your heat sink, and check to be sure both the fans on your power supply and main cooling fan are running properly. If they were the cause of your HD crashing, it's only a matter of time until it happens again.