Ho To Get Unmountable Hdd To Mount?

I have an Alienware laptop with a small SSD for Windows 10 and a HDD for most other things.

The quick question is what can I do to try to get the HDD (which only has a single partition) to mount?

I've tried using Testdisk a little. It found the partition using Quick Search but choosing to Write the partition and then rebooting didn't fix the problem. I checked the Boot Sector menu too in Testdisk but it said the boot sector status was OK so didn't want to risk messing with that.

More info:

The HDD started having cyclical redundancy errors and Alienware's own software said the drive is failing and needs to be replaced. I was backing up files when the laptop froze. Had to hold the power button to turn it off.

When I turned it on again a disk check automatically happened. When Windows came up the HDD wasn't mounted and won't mount even though the drive shows up in Windows Explorer.

For some reason I also got a message about activating Windows. I do remember I had set some things (like My Documents for example) to be on the HDD instead of the SSD. Could that have caused that message? Maybe that was a stupid thing to do. I think I did it because I heard that when a SSD dies it does so completely (recovery of files not possible) and most often without giving any warning signs.

I did get all files backed up from the HDD with a Knoppix usb drive. Only a few were actually corrupted (yay!).


Now I would like to see if I can get the HDD to mount again in Windows. First of all I want to change those things like My Documents back to the SSD drive, so the Windows 10 installation can be complete again.

Can that be done manually, btw? For example when using Knoppix and looking at the SSD, I noticed that in my user folder there was a shortcut to My Documents - pointing to where that was on the failing HDD. That shortcut doesn't even show up in Windows, just in Knoppix. I don't know how to fix that without getting the HDD to mount in Windows.

I'd also like to uninstall everything that was on the HDD so there aren't a bunch of things listed in add/remove programs that won't exist once the drive is replaced. Or would the drive even have to be mounted to get rid of them?

And finally I want to do a secure wipe of the HDD before sending the laptop out for the drive to be replaced. Even though the drive is failing, the data itself is still by mostly intact and recoverable. I prefer to try to take security seriously. But I don't know any way to wipe the drive without it being mountable in Windows.

 

Can your Alienware be set to boot from CD/DVD (if it isn't already set to do so)? Try MiniTool Partition Wizard's bootable CD (Google for it). It runs on Linux. Select the HDD in the main window, Select Wipe in the left menu, select the number of times and the pattern. Then click Apply in the upper left and confirm. All data will be erased.

 

http://findandmount.com/
worth a try. I wish I made a note, last time I think this happened to one I was working on, I used a hex editor on the drive to make Windows able to mount it... can't recall the edits.

 

He's running Windows 10. According to the site, Find and Mount only supports up to Windows 7. Now, if he runs it in compatibility mode, it MAY work.

 

Forgot, did you look under disk management and see if it just needs a drive letter assigned?

 

It has a free trial and it MAY work in normal mode too, just something to TRY.