Interesting question here about bricking older hdd's :/

badrobot said:

BillyBob said:

I'm absolutely 100% sure that if your HDD continually won't show up in the BIOS, it's bricked. If Windows can't see your drive how can you install anything on it.

If the hard drive is invisible on other machines when attached externally then it's probably bricked. But if that conclusion is based only on a single machine, there is also SATA controller hardware issue or SATA driver corruption.

There's nothing wrong with the Sata controller, other drives on the same machine work no probs. I'm not saying it is bricked, but it came very close I think, I certainly won't be running 9879 on it again.

At least half a dozen BSODs and not showing up in the BIOS arent very healthy for a new drive. I've been using Windows since DOS and DOS before that and I've never seen anything like this before. Normally I would have thought it's the drive, but it seems quite a few other people are experiencing this, so it's not the drive.

CountMike said:

Haven't run into any trouble like that yet, inside and portable drives, using 3 inside and about 10 thru USB adapter. On the other hand none of my computers use UEFI, might be a problem with that.

I don't have UEFI, so it's not that either, all I did was update 9860 to 9879 and the problems started. The SSD is new and all it had on it was TP, there werent many Apps and programmes on it either.

Hopefully the drive is still okay and when Microsoft puts out another release I'll put that on it and cross my fingers.

Hi there

It's almost impossible to Brick any HDD unless you can actually access its firmware which isn't generally possible when running an OS like Windows. Sounds a bit like people saying their cars wouldn't start on Jan 1 2000 (Y2K) or planes would drop out of the sky.

The best way IMO to repair a "seemingly Bricked HDD" is to grab yourself any Linux live CD distro (Linux Mint is a good easy one), and boot it up from a USB stick. Then simply run GPARTED which will give you a decent GUI to re-create and format the HDD again (with NTFS if you want as well).

If you are uncomfortable with Linux live Distros you can create a USB bootable version of GPARTED.

GParted -- A free application for graphically managing disk device partitions

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

It's almost impossible to Brick any HDD unless you can actually access its firmware which isn't generally possible when running an OS like Windows. Sounds a bit like people saying their cars wouldn't start on Jan 1 2000 (Y2K) or planes would drop out of the sky.

The best way IMO to repair a "seemingly Bricked HDD" is to grab yourself any Linux live CD distro (Linux Mint is a good easy one), and boot it up from a USB stick. Then simply run GPARTED which will give you a decent GUI to re-create and format the HDD again (with NTFS if you want as well).

If you are uncomfortable with Linux live Distros you can create a USB bootable version of GPARTED.

GParted -- A free application for graphically managing disk device partitions

Cheers
jimbo

If the BIOS can't see the drive nor can Linux, I've fixed plenty of drives with Linux, but Linux won't even boot up off a CD most of the time unless it can see a drive.

Up until a few days ago I would have said it's impossible to brick a drive with software, but I'm not so sure anymore, anyway I'm not going to chance it.

When I say software, I mean normal software not some hacking malicious code.

badrobot said:

BillyBob said:

badrobot said:

BillyBob said:

I'm absolutely 100% sure that if your HDD continually won't show up in the BIOS, it's bricked. If Windows can't see your drive how can you install anything on it.

If the hard drive is invisible on other machines when attached externally then it's probably bricked. But if that conclusion is based only on a single machine, there is also SATA controller hardware issue or SATA driver corruption.

There's nothing wrong with the Sata controller, other drives on the same machine work no probs. I'm not saying it is bricked, but it came very close I think, I certainly won't be running 9879 on it again.

At least half a dozen BSODs and not showing up in the BIOS arent very healthy for a new drive. I've been using Windows since DOS and DOS before that and I've never seen anything like this before. Normally I would have thought it's the drive, but it seems quite a few other people are experiencing this, so it's not the drive.

If it's a new drive, you maybe just unlucky to get something that is about to get bricked. You know what I mean. Go after the manufacturer. You may be able to get a replacement. Some drives have 5 years manufacturer warranty, some have 10 years. I don't know about yours. Before you blame the OS, you might want to do something about getting the manufacturer to replace it. Defective hardware is not uncommon.

It could very well be the drive, I'm going to do quite a bit of testing before I return it. It just seems a bit coincidental that this happened with 9879 and other people are having similar issues.
I didn't blame the OS first, I even told Microsoft it could be the drive, haven't heard back from them yet. It just seems very suspicious that it happened immediately after installing 9879.
Unfortunately I'm doing some video work for a few days but when I finish that I'll spend a bit of time testing the drive and putting Windows 8.1 on it by itself and run it through the mill.
if Microsoft put out another fixed up 9879 or later release I'll put it back on.

Hi there.

Hardware defects DO happen and I'm sure it's NOT due to ANY build of Windows -- Ms has 100'000's of employees / contractors world wide -- if a defect in Ms's software causes HDD bricking I'm sure the courts would be flooding with compensation claims as well as info coming out of Ms itself. They aren't the CIA / FSA (Old KGB rebranded) etc so couldn't possibly keep that type of event under wraps.

People love conspiracy theories but this just isn't the case here. As a sideline into what Humans actually believe vs reality take an example from current day politics --in the UK a few months away from a General Election MORE people apparently believe in the "Loch Ness Monster" than in one of the Politcal Leaders (I think the opposition leader - but not sure). At least whether you like him or loathe him the existence of that person is a FACT which cannot be said of the Loch Ness Monster -- but that still doesn't stop people believing in it.

From across the pond (in the USA) I believe that a significant number of National Inquirer readers still believe that they were once abducted by Aliens in flying saucers. !!! So again people believe in what they believe regardless of evidence or lack of it in their theories.

So Factually it's about 100% impossible for a standard OS like Windows to BRICK an HDD -- it could eventually BREAK one - excessive read writes for example but you'd get indications of failure soon enough.

People will believe in what they will believe - in spite of evidence disproving their theories -- so if you want to blame build 9879 go ahead -- I think though you are wasting your time and just got defective hardware.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there.

Hardware defects DO happen and I'm sure it's NOT due to ANY build of Windows -- Ms has 100'000's of employees / contractors world wide -- if a defect in Ms's software causes HDD bricking I'm sure the courts would be flooding with compensation claims as well as info coming out of Ms itself. They aren't the CIA / FSA (Old KGB rebranded) etc so couldn't possibly keep that type of event under wraps.

People love conspiracy theories but this just isn't the case here. As a sideline into what Humans actually believe vs reality take an example from current day politics --in the UK a few months away from a General Election MORE people apparently believe in the "Loch Ness Monster" than in one of the Politcal Leaders (I think the opposition leader - but not sure). At least whether you like him or loathe him the existence of that person is a FACT which cannot be said of the Loch Ness Monster -- but that still doesn't stop people believing in it.

From across the pond (in the USA) I believe that a significant number of National Inquirer readers still believe that they were once abducted by Aliens in flying saucers. !!! So again people believe in what they believe regardless of evidence or lack of it in their theories.

So Factually it's about 100% impossible for a standard OS like Windows to BRICK an HDD -- it could eventually BREAK one - excessive read writes for example but you'd get indications of failure soon enough.

People will believe in what they will believe - in spite of evidence disproving their theories -- so if you want to blame build 9879 go ahead -- I think though you are wasting your time and just got defective hardware.

Cheers
jimbo

I don't know what you Icelanders drink but it must be pretty powerful, I've got no idea what you're talking about or who you're talking to.