Odd hard drive problem

**Afn** · May 10th, 2005, 05:24 AM

When I woke up this morning, one of the PC's (was turned off) was on and the hard drive was banging continuously, like trying to boot up. The only way to stop it is to pull the power cable. Windows xp started to boot, then stopped.

when I tried to put the recovery disc in, it flashes the screen then the hard drive spins and the screen goes blank.

Any suggestions for recovery? The drive is a western digital 2 to 3 years old.

**Krell** · May 10th, 2005, 05:48 AM

No recovery, none, nein nyet nada

.

**RACKnRAIL** · May 10th, 2005, 06:08 AM

I think what Krell's saying here is it's totally hooped . Even Gibson's Spinrite cannot save data at this point. Bummer!

**.:sp00ky:.** · May 10th, 2005, 06:19 AM

if you haveanother hd you could put xp or some on that and try to recover what you can from the buggered hd oo i just noticed you said you have more than one pc so just put the hd in the other pc as a slavedrive and see if anything can be saved.

...its fucking freezing today....

**Afn** · May 10th, 2005, 06:33 AM

Yeah... well I ordered a seagate, so when that comes, then I can sort out the mess. Is it possible to clone the bad drive onto the new drive, or is it better to extract what you can in another pc?

Thanks!

I figured the drive is trashed. I migrated my data to this new(er) pc from the older pc, and right now I am using the older pc that I migrated from!

**.:sp00ky:.** · May 10th, 2005, 06:59 AM

id just try and extract what you can you dont want to be ruining another hd make sure to scan everything you extract with a uptodate virus scanner too just to be on the safe side.

**Afn** · May 10th, 2005, 07:09 AM

Thanks! Will try to get it to boot xp and copy what I need off the drive.

The Spinrite page is very informative.
http://www.grc.com/sroverview.htm

**phalkon30** · May 10th, 2005, 07:16 AM

Last night a friend came to me with a similar problem with a western digital HD. I've also had 3 fail in the the last few years (they were all only 2 years old), and have had friends lose western digitals.

I haven't had the worst of problems with maxtors, but have known a few that have gone out also.

Seagate...never had a problem.

**.:sp00ky:.** · May 10th, 2005, 07:21 AM

il have to agree i have 3 seagate hd's one of them is 4years old and has never had any problems.

**Afn** · May 10th, 2005, 10:28 AM

So I pulled out the HD, put it in another same model PC and on the third attempt the hard drive booted up.

Whoa.

So without the hard drive in the bad pc, I turned it on and it was clicking.

The CPU fan was not running.

Then power to the PC, but unit off, the CPU fan starts running and Clicking.

So then I try to get into the BIOS screen. Bios screen pops up then pc shuts off after 10 seconds.

So... My guess is bad power supply, or (hope not) bad motherboard/cpu.

SO.. now I wait for ups....

The good news, is if you buy pc's buy them in muliples. Since the other PC worked fine, I was able to swap the hard drive, and even ran m$ check for errors. The drive was fine.

Strange problem.

**cpugeniusmv** · May 10th, 2005, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by Afn

So... My guess is bad power supply, or (hope not) bad motherboard/cpu.

Or it could be overheating.

**.:sp00ky:.** · May 10th, 2005, 10:54 AM

EDIT:oops i didnt read your post verywell :s but i agree with cpu if a pc is overheating it will reset itself.

**Afn** · May 10th, 2005, 02:21 PM

I am going to replace the cpu fan and the power supply and see what happens.

If that doesn't work, then I will salvage what I can from the PC and use the parts when the other unit stops working.

What is odd about it, is the CPU fan does not run, then does run. (pointing to a bad cpu fan)

I will replace both and see what happens.

After this experience, it makes me want to buy a tape back up unit.

**.:sp00ky:.** · May 10th, 2005, 02:36 PM

firstly just buy a new cpu fan their really cheap much cheaper than a new psu is gonna cost then if it works you wont of wasted any cash.

**Afn** · May 11th, 2005, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by .:sp00ky:.

firstly just buy a new cpu fan their really cheap much cheaper than a new psu is gonna cost then if it works you wont of wasted any cash.

The extra PSU is a good idea, then if it does go out, or is bad also, I do not have to wait another 2 weeks to get the pc working. If I do not need it, I goes on the shelf until it is needed. since I have multiple units of the same type, it will be used at some point.

With shipping costs going up, having a spare PSU is not a bad idea. Faster uptime.