Why does my HD do this to me?

[Pablo]

Well, here's an odd little issue. I turn my PC on, go through the normal startup options, then hear a rapid clicking/grinding noise from my HD.

I get to the "Safe Mode/ Last Good Settings/ Normal Startup" menu (I'm running WinXP Professional, if that helps). I choose "Last Good settings, and it loads all the drivers, up to Mup.sys. Then the "blue screen of DEATH" appears, and tells me that it got an UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error. After that, it freezezs and nothing else happens.

I've tried booting from the CD, and I even opened up my chassis and checked all the connections to the motherboard from the drive. Hell, I even changed the power and info cords, to see if anything would happen. Predictably, nothing did.

Help.

[The Savior]

Your drive is (likely) dead. As soon as you start hearing grinding noises from your HD, start backing up, as that is a sure sign of imminent demise. As it stands, if your HD is under warrenty, send it back. Otherwise, it's time to buy a new one. If you do get a new one, I'd reccommend getting a Maxtor, Western Digital, or Seagate. Other brands are notorious for bad drives, especially IBM.

[Flash Man]

Download which ever brand hard drive boot disk(maxtor makes maxblast, fujitsu has fjdt) and run diagnostics, if it works(diagnostics pass) then boot with a DOS disk and then do a fdisk /mbr. Lastly if that doesn't work rebuild your operating system by sticking you XP disc in(be sure that the options in the bios say that it will boot to the CDROM before anything else) and then when it comes to the point it says Repair or Install, skip repair and then there should be something similar to upgrade and thats what you want.

[Pablo]

I asked a nerdy friend of mine and he told me to seal it in a Ziploc and stuff it in the freezer for a while...what will that do?

And yes, he was serious.

[The Savior]

That may allow you to use the drive long enough to get your important data off of it. It's worth a try, although I might double bag it.

[vrsmrt13]

your hard drive is most likely damaged. If you have been transporting you CPu around a lot, or you've dropped, chances are you rHD's surface has been damaged. TO my knowledge, it's almost impossible to recover it afterwards, especially if the damaged sector contains system files. I wouldn't follow you friends advice, because that'll make the rest of the magnet layer just scrape off like a banna skin.

[The Savior]

Originally posted by vrsmrt13
your hard drive is most likely damaged. If you have been transporting you CPu around a lot, or you've dropped, chances are you rHD's surface has been damaged. TO my knowledge, it's almost impossible to recover it afterwards, especially if the damaged sector contains system files. I wouldn't follow you friends advice, because that'll make the rest of the magnet layer just scrape off like a banna skin.

If, by your own admission, it's almost impossible to recover the data, then what's the harm in trying? I've heard it's worked from several people who've tryed it, so it's worth a shot.

[vrsmrt13]

well, yeah, you've got nothing to loose, so yo might as well give it a try then. At least you'll have fun looking at the magnet layer coming off.

[Pablo]

Oh yes, that'll be just buckets of fun. Problem is, I'll be too busy screaming about the loss of every singel sprite and MP3 on the damned thing.

(note to self= CPU stays the hell put! No more moving!)

At least I (sorta) learned something from this...I think...

[The Savior]

Originally posted by vrsmrt13
well, yeah, you've got nothing to loose, so yo might as well give it a try then. At least you'll have fun looking at the magnet layer coming off.

What is it with you and skeptism? That solution has worked (temporarilly, but worked none the less) for other people with the same problem, and their platters stayed just fine. And just to be an ass, you wouldn't see the magnet layer come off unless you took the cover off the drive.

[stormwatcheagle]

Pablo, as a friend, I must say...






HAHAHAHA! YOU'RE COMPUTER'S DEAD! ALL YOU'RE DATA GONE!

I hope you have a Zip drive.

[Flash Man]

Another thing to add onto my stuff is that if you can get into the BIOS(press delete/f1/f10/escape) and then goto the IDE or Basic menu and goto the IDE0 or whatever you have the hard drive hooked up on and select auto detect, if it is detected then it most likely is not broken, if its not either your IDE controller is dead(if it is try swapping cables with the cdrom or plug into the secondary IDE) or the hard drive is dead in which case you need to RMA it. If it is detected i'd suggest going back up what I've said and start there.

[inori]

Never trust a hard drive to last forever... always back up anything you can't afford to lose. (That reminds me: I need to get that file server I was thinking about.)

[Pablo]

It wasn't detected, Flash Man, but thanks for the help anyway. I'll put your info into a TXT file on this PC, just in case it happens again :p


HAHAHAHA! YOU'RE COMPUTER'S DEAD! ALL YOU'RE DATA GONE!
...can you say Remedial English?

I'm just going to freeze the thing and hope.

UPDATE: Freezing brought no results, and I figure this is the end for my poor PC. Thankfully, my laptop is arriving the week after next ^_^

[SSJ3500]

Have you tried hitting it yet? That might work, or it might at least piss your parents off enough to buy you a new PC.

[The Savior]

If you haven't ordered a new HD yet, check out www.fatwallet.com for good deals on them, assuming that your current one is out of warrenty. The latest rebate has a drive at 56 cents / gigabyte, I think.

[Pablo]

Actually, I don't plan on buying another hard drive, since my laptop will be appearing soon anyways.

And one would think that a place called FatWallet would be expensive...

[The Savior]

Quite the opposite. The implication is that if you look for deals via that site, your wallet will be fat with the money you save.