Windows 7 not detecting HDD

My brother was trying to restore his friends laptop and during the process the power got disconnected and the C Drive got wiped--I believe.


I decided to fix it I would do a fresh install of Windows 7.

Everything was going great and I got the recovery disk to install, but my problem was the Hard drive wasn't showing up as unallocated disk space. The drive did show up, but not as any free space.

I tried to do some tutorials in diskpart to fix the drive, but to no avail.

Now, I can't even get windows, or BIOS to detect the drive.

The last diskpart command I did was to reformat it.

It wasn't the quick reformat, but the one that takes an extremely long time.

That's when I noticed it wasn't detecting anymore.


Here's some pics of what I'm seeing:

imgur: the simple image sharer

imgur: the simple image sharer

imgur: the simple image sharer

If the HD is not detected in BIOS then it likely is bad. You can try reinstalling it and check the contacts to see that it is correctly inserted, but if it won't register in BIOS then it's likely gone bad and needs replacing.

If you can get it to show up in BIOS then download and burn to CD the HD maker's HD Diagnostic using Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn then Boot to run the extended CD scan.

If this is OK then see if it will show up in Diskpart or installer now. If so, create a full Disk partition to run Disk Check from the DVD Command Line. Those two tests are needed to pass the HD as useable.

Maybe this can help:

1. attach disk physically
2. boot from installation/recovery DVD/CD/USB
3. run diskpart
4. list disk
5. select disk # - number of disk in question (if listed at all, if not listed - low level format could help)
6. clean - this will zero MBR and partition information.

See if disk is listed with its full size:
7. list disk
8. format again.

If still no success:

Low level formatting:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.shtml
can do but best is manifacturer tool (if available).

"Lowest" level formatting:
HDDGURU: MHDD

Now I have a problem in that BIOS isn't booting. It's getting struck on the black screen. :/

On top of that my USB seems to be bad now. I wonder if this was because of something I did in BIOS or Diskpart.

It will detect the Sand Disk drive, but it won't allow it to be formatted.

Nvm, repaired Sand Disk drive by putting into a macintosh and also got BIOS to boot by taking out BIOS battery.