Strange HDD behavior

R

Resolve

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2012
Messages
203
Reaction score
4
Location
Pretoria
Hi, I am currently having a strange problem with a few HDD's. There is a chance that my samsung 2TB external has failed, but not sure at the moment. To check this I decided to open the enclosure and connect it to my PC.(external is out of warranty)

Now my PC has 2 HDD's, a 120GB for OS and another 250GB for files etc.
(And yes I made doubly sure the 120GB is the OS drive)

I unplugged the 250GB and connected the 2TB in its place, when I tried to start the PC it gave the following error; Ntldr is missing. I did some googeling and apparently a PC gives this error when it is not able to boot from the right drive/dvd etc. I went into the the boot menu and chose the 120GB to boot from. It then gave me an error; BOOT DISK FAILURE. I disconnected the 2TB and it still gave me that error.I also made sure that the 120GB was the master HDD.

After that I reconnected the 250GB and it suddenly worked. For some reason the 120GB(OS) wont work without the 250GB(Files, crap).

Its not a major issue but still curious. I can just take my 2TB to a local PC shop where they can just quickly check the drive for me.

Does anybody have any advice for me?
 
The boot sector probably still sits on the 250gb drive. Windows was installed there at one stage.
 
Make the 120gig the primary,repair the installation,stick in the 2TB
 
Noooo. My 2Tb has indeed broken. Sad face.

Just saw this in another thread.
http://www.cssi.co.za/
Can anybody recommend them?
A friend of mine does have a clean 2TB that I can borrow to do the backup of mine.
A WD 3TB usb 2.0 at rebeltech costs around R1500. So hopefully doing a backup to the other 2TB will be less.

PS. Dont really care about the TV shows/Movies etc that I lost. But there is some other very important stuff that will be difficult to retrieve.
 
Last edited:
How sure are you it's 'broken'? Get a Linux Live disc and see if you can access the drive.

Is the drive making unusual noises? If you can get a Linux disc you can check the SMART of the drive and get an idea of it's health. Booking a drive in for data recovery in your area, and being a 2TB drive, the quote is going to be in the thousands.

I don't see that you've done much troubleshooting yet, unless I'm mistaken.
 
Is indeed making strange noises.And I did take it to a local PC shop.Told me it is picking it up in the device manager but they werent able to acces it. Although im not really sure I trust them XD. But yes I do run a VM with linux...so will check it out. Thanks

The horror of losing all 7 seasons of whose line is it anyway is keeping me motivated :D
 
Is it clicking and then spinning down after clicking quite a few times? Or does it stay spinning.
 
Not sure but will check.It was making a "clicking noise".Why do you ask?
 
Last edited:
Based on the noise I can give you an indication of what the failure is, on which the price for recovery would (should) be based.
 
I agree with South_Bit, if it's making clicking noises, that would be danger signs that it's failing. However, even when you connect it as an external, you can still run tools like this one: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/ to check the drive integrity (just the basic test) and if it fails, pray. (It tests any make hard drive by the way)

I had a drive filled with music (purchased and produced) that I had no choice but to recover and it cost me around R3300 for a 1TB recovery. Seems I ended up with a bad batch of hard drive. Had it replaced under warranty.

Good luck with that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X