hard drive not showing up....

[dustcoversmyheels]

i started my mac pro the other day, and it took longer than normal to start the OS. maybe a couple of minutes or so compared to 15-20 seconds like it usually does. and it made a slight clicking noise that it never had done before.

when the desktop first came up a warning appeared that read "unable to read the disk you have inserted." and then shortly after that, i realized my 2nd hard drive was not showing up normally. It doesn't show up in the finder, and under the disk utility its showing up as 0 bytes.

this is the hard drive that i track everything to, and it would be nice to at least save my info to another disk.

i fear that this hard drive has bit the dust, but is there anyway i could retrieve the content of it?

any advice?

[cuttime]

Desperate times calls for desperate measures:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... hard+drive

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I assume you chose "repair disk" in Disk Utility? Disk Warrior? DO NOT write anything to that disk until you try some diagnostic tricks! You could loose it all. Until then, you stand a chance of regaining your files.

[dustcoversmyheels]

thanks for the replies.

are there any recovery programs/methods that come stock on a mac?

This is a list of the specs when disk utility comes up:
"
Disk Description: Media
Connection Bus: Serial ATA 2
Connection Type: Internal
Connection ID: Bay 2
Total Capacity: 0 Bytes
Write Status: Read/Write
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Not Supported
Partition Scheme: Unformatted
"
and the "verify diskpermissions, repair disk permissions, verify disk, and repair disk" are all grayed out and not click-able.

[Frodo]

thanks for the replies.

are there any recovery programs/methods that come stock on a mac?

Apple's utilities tend to be geared towards OSX software, so the short answer is "yes and no".

You could try running a diagnostics test with the utilities which came with your machine (on one of the 'other' discs than disc 1).

Questions:

1. How old is your machine-- assuming that we're talking about a hard drive which came with it?

2. Since you were asking about any disc utilities native to OSX, is it a safe to guess that you've never repaired or defragmented your system drive?

If you think the hard drive is on its way out, then I would download Carbon Copy Cloner and backup everything--- make sure you create a BOOTABLE clone so that you can boot from it.

http://www.bombich.com/

However-- if the problem is due to software corruption of some sort (which is not uncommon), then repairing the files and directories will be paramount. Otherwise, you'll end up cloning the problem to a new drive. In other words, you'll be chasing your tail.

I'll just say this-- purchasing Disk Warrior was one of the top three most worthwhile investments I've made as far as computer hygiene is concerned. All it has to do is save your tail feathers just one time and it has earned its keep.

[dustcoversmyheels]

my machine was purchased the very first day that apple offered mac pros for sale. i believe that was mid 2007. it is the hard drive that came with it.

and yes you are correct, i've never repaired or defragmented my system drive.

i'm hoping that this is a software problem, and that the files and directories can be repaired as Frodo speaks of.

[Frodo]

and yes you are correct, i've never repaired or defragmented my system drive.

Dude-- Disk Warrior 4.x.

[kassonica]

[dustcoversmyheels]

should i defragment my system drive more often?

and if so, how do i execute such a task?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Probably not.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375

[newrigel]

should i defragment my system drive more often?

and if so, how do i execute such a task?

Yes... if it's your drive you record your audio to... but there isn't nothing wrong with doing it.
iDefrag works great because you can specify the type of structure you need for optimization.
OS X's optimized all the time (only system files) but it doesn't deal with any other files that may need to be optimized on the system drive.

But getting the drive to mount... try disk warrior and rebuild the directory and if it won't mount you need to use a recovery utility like DATA RESCUE... it has always recovered files that I couldn't get from using other utilities... but be warned. The files aren't going to have any naming conventions as what they were before so you just have to look at them or open them up... thanks to quick look (if your in LEO) most of the files shouldn't be too much of a PITA to find out what they actually are!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Might add that even Apple admits that video can cause fragmentation serious enough to require defragging. IF it can happen to video, then it can happen to audio. If you're seeing wheels of color, then it may be time to buy disks to defrag.

[buddhabelly]

The operating system defrags files less than 1GB on the fly, which is why they say Video files will can fragment a drive.

To the OP, the drive is dead, not going to be recoverable from any software. If you're under warranty and want the drive replaced by Applecare, you will need to send that drive to Drive Savers. Be prepared, it is NOT cheap. But if it's all your work and you don't have a backup...

Drive Savers offers a free evaluation now, so they will see how much data they can get and give you a quote on the cost. I've seen them go from $1700 on up. I had one customer that literally only needed about 80mb of data for their client database and books, $2400.

Moral of the story, backup drive can be had for as little as $90.

[Frodo]

To the OP, the drive is dead, not going to be recoverable from any software.

How do you know?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Could be stiction - I'd freeze it and drop it... LOL! (I would! Probably drop it first. Always seems to work... )