I have 2 WD HDDs that I have wiped to the point that they are not detected, what now?

widget · 02-21-2009, 01:22 PM

I have not been a linux user long and feel like a kid in a toy store. This is too much fun. However, you can have too much fun.

I formated 2 HDDs (yes 2, I am a slow learner) and played with them and ended up wiping everything off them. I would have been fine if I had put some file system on them but I did not. Now nothing I have will recognize them.

I went to the WD site and down loaded a Live type diagnostic CD (had the choice of Win or DOS, went with DOS). It does not detect them. I have tried this internally with no other HDD on. I have tried it in an external enclosure with all HDDs off in bios. No luck.

I have also tried fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk, parted, and gparted.

I run on a Dell XPS420 with quad core 6600 240GHz, 3G ram, 2xWD 320G HDD under Ubuntu 8.04-64 (primarily). I also have Mandriva, PCLOS, Mepis, and Ultimate Edition (which is just suped up Hardy).

There is no MS here. I can access it if I have to in town (I am a ranch hand) at the Dreaded Mother In Laws.

Does anyone have an idea that I can try? The 2 HDDs are no good the way they are. One is IDE and the other SATA, so the IDE must go in an enclosure as my box is SATA.

Thanks and I promise not to do this again. I have 5 HDDs (all 320s) running fine right now. Just getting confident enough to try to tackle this now. So far it does not look good. I may have to right them off as a learning experience.

H_TeXMeX_H · 02-21-2009, 02:21 PM

Are you sure something like 'fdisk /dev/sda' doesn't work ? It would be nice if look through 'dmesg' and see if it detects the HDD there, for example:

Code:

bash-3.1$ dmesg | grep -i ata
 BIOS-e820: 000000007eee7000 - 000000007eef2000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 000000007eef3000 - 000000007eeff000 (ACPI data)
PERCPU: Allocating 32352 bytes of per cpu data
Memory: 2041224k/2079744k available (2651k kernel code, 36140k reserved, 1072k data, 224k init)
libata version 3.00 loaded.
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 6 ports 3 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225100 irq 21
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225180 irq 21
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225200 irq 21
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225280 irq 21
ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225300 irq 21
ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0x93225000 port 0x93225380 irq 21
ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
ata4.00: ATA-7: ST3160815AS, 4.AAB, max UDMA/133
ata4.00: 312581808 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata6: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
ata6.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203D, SB00, max UDMA/100, ATAPI AN
ata6.00: configured for UDMA/100
scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3160815AS      4.AA PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
bash-3.1$

you can also try:

Code:

bash-3.1# lsscsi
[3:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST3160815AS      4.AA  /dev/sda
[5:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203D  SB00  /dev/sr0

widget · 02-21-2009, 02:43 PM

I will try all that later. It is a little advanced for me. Should be good education.

I hear that folks over 50 don't learn enough new stuff.

There is serious doubt in my mind that it will turn any thing up as the WD digs could detect no WD device on the computer.

I will run this the same as I did that. Turn off the externals, turn off SATA 0 in BIOS, install the bad HDD on SATA 3 and boot with a live CD and run from there. I will be using Ubuntu8.04 for this.

When I last tried the drives I ran the HDD in an external and tried fdisk, etc. from the main installation and and liveCD. I also tried it with the LiveCD when I had it on SATA 3 when I tried the WD disk. In both cases fdisk, cfdisk and sfdisk failed to detect a drive at all. I did get a little excited over sfdisk on the LiveCD because it detected a drive that it could only read. Then I realized it was talking about the CDrom drive.

Yes I actually used that very command

Code:

fdisk /dev/sda

I really have to do some ranch type things while it is light out and then I will try this bugger and report back.

David the H. · 02-21-2009, 02:48 PM

How exactly did you "wipe" everything off of them? I find it hard to believe that you could make them completely unaccessible at the hardware level with the any of the normal kinds of software erases or overwrites.

sirlancealot · 02-21-2009, 02:57 PM

does your bios recognize your bad HDD?

Ixthusdan · 02-21-2009, 04:05 PM

Wiping a drive does not affect its ability to communicate. In other words, the drive talks to the system prior to relaying any data it contains. So, if the bios does not detect them, something else happened to them other than just wiping the data from the internal disks. The WD utilities can talk to the drive even if there is not disk rotation or pick ups. It sounds like a short (on the exposed board at the bottom) and the drives are fried. This could have been a result of handling, not wiping.

widget · 02-21-2009, 11:18 PM

OK to answer a few questions.

To tell the truth I am not sure what I did. I am sure that seeing as how this happened to 2 drives that what I was doing was to blame.

I was "playing" around with partitioning with gparted. I had never used this and so things did not go as planned. I would delete everything and start over. After doing this several times. The drives would not be detected if I quit and came back later.

I am sure that there is no physical damage to these drives and certainly not to both.

BIOS not see a drive.

H TexMex H:
I ran this:

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$  dmesg | grep -i ata

[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000bfe55c00 - 00000000bfe57c00 (ACPI data)

[    0.000000] PERCPU: Allocating 34656 bytes of per cpu data

[   71.729185] Memory: 3087116k/3144012k available (2489k kernel code, 56508k reserved, 1318k data, 320k init)

[   84.236923] libata version 3.00 loaded.

[   85.043517] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: version 2.12

[   85.043526] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: MAP [ P0 P2 P1 P3 ]

[   85.201854] scsi0 : ata_piix

[   85.201895] scsi1 : ata_piix

[   85.201912] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xfe00 ctl 0xfe10 bmdma 0xfec0 irq 20

[   85.201914] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xfe20 ctl 0xfe30 bmdma 0xfec8 irq 20

[   86.202889] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.5: MAP [ P0 -- P1 -- ]

[   86.355744] scsi2 : ata_piix

[   86.355791] scsi3 : ata_piix

[   86.355817] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xfe40 ctl 0xfe50 bmdma 0xfed0 irq 20

[   86.355818] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xfe60 ctl 0xfe70 bmdma 0xfed8 irq 20

This was fun but doesn't tell me a thing.

lsscsi is not installed on the CD (or my drives I am sure) and is being installed now.

Ran that:

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lsscsi
[4:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  Memorex  DVD+-RAM 530L v1 5M64  /dev/scd0
[5:0:0:0]    disk    DELL     USB   HS-CF Card 7.08  /dev/sda
[5:0:0:1]    disk    DELL     USB   HS-xD/SM   7.08  /dev/sdb
[5:0:0:2]    disk    DELL     USB   HS-MS Card 7.08  /dev/sdc
[5:0:0:3]    disk    DELL     USB   HS-SD Card 7.08  /dev/sdd

I will be installing that on my main installations. I notice it does not pick up my internal DVDrom which is a SATA drive. Is this because it runs on firewire? Or is it just buggy? I have never been happy with it. That is why I am running on an external. I have another Memorex CDrom that is turned off at the moment.

The SATA WD HD drive is the one I am looking for. It is installed at SATA 3 in the terms my BIOS uses.

widget · 02-21-2009, 11:29 PM

As I am wanting to keep some notes on this I turned on an external HDD to store on. thought I would rerun the commands to see the difference.

" dmesg | grep -i ata "
renders the same results with one additional line at the end
"[ 2760.374025] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode."

" lsscsi "
renders and extra line too:
"[6:0:0:0] disk SAMSUNG HD321KJ /dev/sde"

This is the drive that came with the box. Poor thing had Vista Home premium on it. Doesn't make as much noise after removing that.

widget · 02-22-2009, 12:35 AM

Well, that was interesting.

Had fun getting back running on my main drive. Restarted and went to BIOS. Turned SATA 0 back on. Tried to boot.

Got this message:

Quote:

Error: auto-sensing secondary slave hard disk drive.
Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run the setup utility.
Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics.

Struck F1 and got my grub menu and tried to boot to this version of Ubuntu (8.10). Would not boot, got all kinds of error messages instead of the logon screen. Ignored them and shut the bugger down and removed bad drive. Rebooted with no problem.

BIOS is detecting the bugger.

Before removing the drive I went back on the LiveCD and tried fdisk again. No luck.

crashmeister · 02-22-2009, 03:35 AM

Are you sure the drive is in the same 'spot' as it was when it worked?

If it was channel one master on installlation and is now something els e.g. channel one slave grub wont boot.

Google for supergrub and d/l and burn the cd.That thing will boot anything if there is something to boot from and you can take it from there.

widget · 02-22-2009, 04:16 AM

crashmeister

When I was screwing up the drives they were in the external enclosures so that I could play with them from my main OS. The IDE drive can only be run from there as this is a SATA box.

The SATA drive that I am trying to recover is currently on a shelf and the normal drive that is in that slot is there. For that matter I am on Mandriva right now on that drive.

The 2 drives I use boot indepentently. I like it that way. I can have the main on in BIOS and use a partition on this drive for backup or turn it off and boot into the flavors on this drive.

The single HDD external is being reorganized but it is mainly an Intrepid drive that I can take to town and use on the box there. It boots itself.

The dual HDD external I am trying to set up to use to demonstrate Linux to the many ranch folks that I work with and are not happy with Vista. I try the flavors out on this drive (the second internal) and if I can get them to work with little effort they go on there. One HDD on it is loaded with 64 stuff and the other I load at The Dreaded Mother in Laws on her 32 machine. That has no switch for the HDDs so it boots both HDDs but it to is independent of all other systems. If I set it up for someone to try a flavor I can just set that flavor as default with startupmanager and leave it with them and they can see what they want.

I have no idea what I will be doing with the bad drive if it can be saved. It will probably go into a box that I have ideas about building in the next year or so.

crashmeister · 02-22-2009, 05:39 AM

You are obviously even worse than I am when it comes to amking a mess with hd's.

Do yourself a favour and always keep the same drive as your principal boot drive in your box (you'll need at least some Linux there - otherwise you couldn't adjust the bootloader).
When you install something new on another drive always let it install the bootloader on the MBR of the drive it is installed on (don't touch the principal).

Then you can either edit the bootloader on the principal drive to chainload that and/or just tell the BIOS where to boot from.
That way you always have two ways to boot the OS and since you won't touch the bootloader on the principal except adding stuff yhe OS's on the pricipal will alway be bootable.

Anyway get a supergrub CD just in case.

You might not be able to boot from external drives though depending on the hardware involved.

Greetings to The Dreaded Mother in Laws

widget · 02-22-2009, 07:53 AM

crashmeister

YES, I am very good at screwing up. When you are good at something you should stick with it.

On the primary HDD I have 3 installs of Ubuntu. The "work" install is Hardy and I am very carfull of it. The next is Hardy and it is strickly for me to play with. The third is Intrepid and I use it for a lot of things.

I have had very good luck so far in booting with the external on other computers. Ubuntu checks the hardware on every boot anyway. So far, if you can set the box to boot from a USB device, it will boot from my external.

That is part of the reason that I want to have the dual with both clean 64 versions and clean 32 versions.

I have also made a LiveCD of a clean install with some extras added to make installing easier.

As far as grub goes, I have screwed it up so many times that I am pretty good at fixing it. The funny thing is that the worst it has been screwed up is from just booting up a supergrub CD, looking through it and quiting. Have no idea what went on there.

I usually install grub on the newest installation and then reinstall (reactivate) it on the one I want to boot from. This means that grub is there on all of them if something really goes south and I need to switch to another to get it booted. It is easy from a LiveCD, usually 4 commands and you are done. Usually have to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst on my boot install to include the new one.

The DMiL had a problem with her Vista MBR and I thought it would be an easy fix. There are 2 extra partitions on that installation, 2 are just for recovery stuff. Burned a generic disk for MBR recovery from MS. Didn't work. Read aout a bunch of other folks that have had the same experience. I resized one of her extra partitions and put Hardy on 50Gb. She now boots with grub. It boots faster than the Vista boot did.

I really like Vista. If it had not been for Vista I would still be using Win. This box came with it and it took me 3 days to realize that it was never going to work for me. My wife was ready to give it up in 3 weeks and so here we are, no MS at all. Thanks to Vista.

The Samsung HDD in the external was what Vista was on. It was a noisy sucker. Groaning and grinding all the time under Vista. I thought it may be bad. When I got brave and wiped Vista off and but on linux it quieted right down, man what a dog of an OS.

For all those who "have" to have Win, I hope that Win7 is a LOT better.

crashmeister · 02-22-2009, 08:48 AM

Dunno about vista - never tried but it shouldn't be that bad looking how everyboby loves the win7 betas which are only a slight dressup.

Anyway vista in an external drive might give you some trouble (as said - don't you quote me as an authority) because it's on an external drive and the drivers might not be up to snuff.

I found out that it is wayyy easier to checkout distros with virtual machines except you plan to do heavy lifting there - meaning anything 3d, hd I/O intensive or anything multithreaded since most vm's only let you use one core.
In any case - what I do these days is:
install in a vm first,have a look and think about if it's worth to check it out on a real install later.

thorkelljarl · 02-22-2009, 09:09 AM

I would look at this.

I once deleted the label of a HDD with a live partitioning CD. If you use GParted on a live CD you can set the label to msdos and see if that helps.

If you find a solution, be so kind as to tell us all. Good Luck