First thing is to retrieve those Family Photographs - buy an external drive adapter or case - remove the drive and put it in the case - attach it to another computer and copy the files you need.

Just because the drive is 4 months old does not mean it did not fail. I hope you get your photographs back.

Hi, think i'm way too late but just in case, go to the BIOS setup, & change the disk controller setting from AHCI to IDE. might worth the try.

I have Connected Removable disk of 8GB but it not detected by computer

Hi,
I have Transcend removable Hard drive.. which is 120 GB with two partition.. One partition drive is able to access .. another one is unable to use.. its not showing the TOTAL Space and FREE Space.. if i double click the same drive ..windows is asking to format.. if i do format, i'm getting the error info Windows was unable to format.

Please help me out to format the drive

Do not reformat yet.
is it possible to boot in safe mode? try that, i had a problem similar to that before
cant enter the windows, but when i chose the safe mode it did
you can copy your files if youve entered the windows

or

try to buy a new hard disk, then use it as the primary, and see if your old hard disk will function as a slave.
sounds a bit expensive but it might work, if it works, you can copy your files then


goodluck

With the downgrades from vista to Xp it could be a driver issue? - you will need to go to the laptop manufacturers website and get drivers for xp the main one you need, the one to get the HDD working is a RAID driver, you can download the rest after the install works.

Check out following resource that may help you to find solution:

http://free-tips-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/01/hard-drive-not-­recognized-found.html

Hello,

I have the same problem with a home-built AMD 1.3gH "Thunderbird" cpu system, 512mb ddr memory,
40 gig Seagate HDD, 64meg nVidea card. Windowz XP Pro SP3. . Listen, I have tried EVERYTHING to try to get this !?$%@*& pc to boot up.

Always the same thing- "Harddrive not recognized" or "Boot Device Not Recognized". ARRRGH!

We've been through the BIOS (when it still started sometimes), have tried to boot from original WinXP CD, Then from floppies of the same, then a generic recovery disc, Windows Rescue disc, Partition Magic boot floppy, Win98SE install disc, Win 95 disc, more I can't remember.
Recovery pamel no help, can't get there with no hd! . Either the damn HD is bad, or the MB is screwed up somewhere, is all I can figure. I got a local guy who says he can recover data from a dead hd for $60.00 He'll tellI hope he can recover my favs and installation folders/files,and contacts, but if I just get back thr gifs, jpgs, txt, docs, and mp3s I'll be happy . Alot of irreplaceable scanned family pics, the photographs them selves were lost.
It's gotta be the hd or mb, right?

I too had a similar problem with my laptop. My laptop had a virus attack and somehow I managed to remove all the viruses. However there was one persistent problem which was while booting, My documents used to open automatically. Hence I wanted to repair the Windows XP SP2 and so I went to BIOS and changed the settings to boot from CDROM. While booting the installation CD from CDROM, suddenly I get a message: Hard disk not found! This was nightmare. Then I got this solution:
My laptop was new and the HDD was connected to motherboard with SATA, and we need SATA drivers before installing OS. In the likely event of not getting this driver, we could still solve this problem by confusing the computer. Go to BIOS settings and change the SATA to IDE or any other. Then restart the computer. The HDD now can be seen and you can repair or reinstall the Windows XP SP2.

Thanks a lot man,

finally after 3 days intense hard work, solved in 5 sec. many experts guided wrong, but i can name "tech guru" - thanks a lot again

uuuuuuuu

Hi Guys, does anyone here know how to disable SATA on HP Pavilion dv7?
For the life of me, I can't seem to find the option in the BIOS setup.