Help with hard drives

[vrapt0r]

Okay i need help urgently with my sisters pc. I had a lan with a bunch of friends on friday and i decided to take my sisters pc down to play with an extra computer, we set it up and it booted the first time but the mouse didnt work. so we restarted it and when it was loading XP it bombs out after a blue screen error, the hard drive also makes a grinding noise just before it bombs. Ive tried putting in my hard drive and it works fine, so all the other hardware is working. The bios detects the hard drive and everything in cmos is fine.

Any ideas would be appreciated

[!!DV!!]

All that sounds like real bad news. The grinding noise is all but good. Did you rty her drive in your machine? It sounds like that drive is dying.. or is dead by now.

[GuRu]

1. Type of drive / make / size / IDE / SATA
2. Did it work before
3. if yes to #2 - then when last was it used
4. Most important - was the PC bumped/dropped ( be honest )

[vrapt0r]

Western Digital Caviar 80gb IDE
It was working great before and its only about 4 months old
All i did was move it down stairs to our bar.
The was no notable bumping or dropping just the assosaited movement with walking
and going down a few stairs, im quite the frequent laner and i move computers all the
time and nothing like this has ever happened.

[P0tenc]

Well....could just have been that the HDD was damaged before, and over time becomes more damaged. You just happened to move it down stairs when it was about to crash anyways. I have a hdd here with exactly the same problem. My aunt only use her pc for a few stupid games and office. She phones me up and says she can't get in to windows. She also tells me she hears a weird sound she's never heard before. Sure enough it's the HDD. Moral of the story-->HDD's can fail any where any time. And it could just be coincidence that you moved the pc and the hdd happened to fail at the same time. I also have noticed ppl who take better care of their pc's have less HDD problems.

[!!DV!!]

If the drive is only 4 Months old it is still under warranty, It's time to find the invoice and return it to the store for replacement. The only damage will be the data loss if there aren't any backups.

[jjtoymachine]

shame...invite me to the funeral :D

[vrapt0r]

are you sure thier is nothing i can do she really needs the stuff on there

[bwana]

All hard drives fail eventually. If you're prepared to spend some big bucks there are people who specialize in recovering data. Course you could always contact the manufacturer and try to get them to cover the cost.

[caroper]

Try this tool, It saved me more than once

http://mandatory.org/public/Appz/Partiton_recovery

Cheers
Chris

[rburley]

will having your comp on 24/7 reduce their lifespan?

[caroper]

I've had PC's on for over 5 years with no problems.
They were servers (IBM, Compaq, etc) but quality components should last.
In fact there is less thermal stress on the components if they never cool down.

[vrapt0r]

read the manuel and cant realy make x or y of it (or to lazy). please can you tell me what to do.

[caroper]

make a boot disk, any OS will do, win98 startup disk is probably the best.
copy PR.EXE onto the disk.
Boot off the disk
Run PR from the A:> prompt
It will allow you to analize the disk and resore any missing partition information.
If track 0 is bad you may be able to restore it as nonbootable and copy the data onto another drive.

[vrapt0r]

thx man will do

[killadoob]

why not just hook it up to your pc and see if it will read it there

if it does remove data and format

[nOhIwAy]

Guys, the drive is knocking .... clicking ....

This type of fault must avoid any connection to normal dr programs.

You need data ?? - do not power on again without consulting expert.
You want good chance to lose all data - select any of the advices above.

[vrapt0r]

can u use a cd for this program to boot from
or not?

[rburley]

*me goes to backup for 1st time*

[caroper]

can u use a cd for this program to boot from
or not?

Yes, any boot disk, as long as you can put PR.EXE onto it.
But nOhIwAy is correct, you may not be able to access it or indeed do more damage if the drive is still in the process of crashing.
On the other hand unless you are willing to pay mega bucks to have te drive dismanteld in a clean room you have little choice.

[LoneGunman]

you can always freeze the HD, wrapping securely in air/watertight plastic, and stash it in the fridge for a few hours/ or overnight - then install it as a secondary drive and quickly pull the needed data off it.
see 101 ways to revive a HD:
http://www.handcraftedwebsites.com/newsletter/pctips/20040314.html
http://www.examnotes.net/article1030374.html
fix hard drive
http://pcproblemsolver.com/directory/fixharddrive/
http://forums.vnunet.com/thread.jsp?forum=7&thread=37916

[nOhIwAy]

Members can pm me and I will give free advice on best chances
of data recovery. Just send details - drive type - failure type.

I do DR 4 DR companies and have equipment, technology and skills
not available to others. eg. IBM 2.5" security removal and much else.

Hope this is not read as an ad. - just want to help..........

[FxpForce]

Prof. Recover 2000 works like a dream on damage hdd.