Question : Problem: WD 80 GIG HD will not mount. is recognized as a drive by the bios

I have an 80 gig WD hard drive that seemed to go south after trying to install Windows XP SP3 on it.
At this point, we just need to remove some data from it then it hits the circular.  I have spinright 6.0, it immediately comes up and says that S.M.A.R.T says the drive is in imminent danger of failing, and not to use it (spinright) until I have copied the data off it.  And there is the rub.  While Bios sees the drive, it does not show up as a mounted drive with a letter that one could copy the data from.  Any ideas?  I have tried mounting it as a slave internally, and currently have it connected to an external mounting kit that works successfully with another IDE drive I had laying about.  When I plugged it in this time, the computer recognized the USB hardware, the bridge, the usb mass storage device, said WD80xxx drive, but then did not assign a drive letter and put into "my computer".  Help!

Answer : Problem: WD 80 GIG HD will not mount. is recognized as a drive by the bios

Scan the drive using getdataback. This should work even when windows doesn't see it. Then when you can see the files you need, register the utility so you can copy the data off.

http://runtime.org