OS and everything gone!

[willin]

Ok guys this one has me stumped, I wanted to install a linux OS so I bought myself another hard drive (keep things seperate etc with no problems) after installing the drive I went to boot into windows XP (the old drive), nothing, it got to reconising the dvd drives at boot etc then stopped.
after trying several things I removed the new drive and tried to boot, nothing, so I took it to a local pc store and they said the old drive was blank nothing on it at all! I have tried the windows recovery console and various commands to fix the boot.ini, also with a NTLDR boot disk, all I get is "windows root>\system32\hal.dll is missing please reinstall this file".
Has anyone any advice?
Thanks in advance

 

[willin]

Ok. thanks again!

 

[willin]

The pc will still not boot with the old drive connected, can someone tell me if using an external drive enclosure with maybe a firewire connection will be of any use for running PM etc to check the drive.

 

[techquest]

Yes you can run PM on an external but the problem is you drive maybe in a bad enough state for that not to be possible.

The only way to see if it is possible to get it going is through the Bios and run fdsik from dos, win 98 startup disk will do this or PM into cd, with cd as 1st boot device, and run PM. But if the bios is not recognising the HD then there is something wrong with the HD.

Try putting the HD on the slave port of the secondary ide cable with a cd on the master port of the secondary cable and see what happens that way. YOu might find then that the PC boots but don't be suprised if the HD is not seen by the Bios.

Let me know what happens when you try this.

 

[willin]

Techquest,
Tried as you suggested with cd as 1st boot device, copied the pm boot files to cd. Must have done something wrong as it would not boot from the cd. So copied to 2 boot floppies from pm which I assume are the same, got to the pm 8 screen then it seems it was searching, left it for around 15 mins. Nothing, pretty much as you say its not been seen.
I think I will still buy an external drive enclosure an try.
thanks techquest

 

[techquest]

willin

thought that you might make use of my post if and when you get the extrenal case. You could also make use of it now to see what you have or have not got on your PC. Hope it helps.

https://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/index.php?threads/157794/

 

[willin]

Techquest/everyone
Got the drive enclosure, tried with my old drive HD1 in this, in my computer the drive is not shown, done as techquests post “View non present devices in Windows XP's Device Manager” on the non present devices (it is present but not recognised) when looking at the properties/volumes and trying to populate the drive info it says, volume info cannot be found.
A family member had an old HDD (quantum fireball) from 2001/2 that made a noise when used, I have tried with this in the drive enclosure, it is shown in my computer I can access programmes etc from it, it still makes a noise when reading from the drive. When I power up the enclosure with my old drive HD1 I have noticed a scraping noise after 8-10 seconds, this sounds like something catching when the drive is spinning disconnected the enclosure fan to be certain, tried a dozen times, it definitely makes that noise at power up. Is this normal? Would it be worth opening it up to have a look, could anything be done? Cleaning the air hole for example, 6 small bolts (star heads) around the perimeter, 2 larger 1 small bolts to the bottom left.

Thanks

 

[techquest]

That explains it all willin, sad you did not mention it 65 post's ago!

The scraping noise is the heads on the drive that read and write. Could have been an accidental shock to drive. They dont need much of a bump or shock for this to happen. The drive is no good anymore.

As for trying to do anything with it then forget it. You would need the use of a clean room and shedloads of other specialist gear. Once you break the seal the drive would be no use. Even a tiny spec of dust would render it useless. Hence I said a clean room and it would have to have positive pressure to prevent any dust coming in. So unless you have £000,000's to spend throw it away and don't waste anymore time or effort.

End of thread my guess and it should be listed as closed.

 

[willin]

Don't think anyone could have noticed this when inside the pc, not with fans etc, thanks for all of your time techquest I very much appreciate all of your advice.

 

[oneman]

That explains it all willin, sad you did not mention it 65 post's ago!

The scraping noise is the heads on the drive that read and write. Could have been an accidental shock to drive. They dont need much of a bump or shock for this to happen. The drive is no good anymore.

As for trying to do anything with it then forget it. You would need the use of a clean room and shedloads of other specialist gear. Once you break the seal the drive would be no use. Even a tiny spec of dust would render it useless. Hence I said a clean room and it would have to have positive pressure to prevent any dust coming in. So unless you have £000,000's to spend throw it away and don't waste anymore time or effort.

End of thread my guess and it should be listed as closed.

Depending on how critical the data is, you can send it to a data recovery company with clean room but expect to looking at a bill over £1k.

 

[willin]

Hi oneman, if you go back to post 21 I actually recoverd quite a few files from the drive before the pc stopped booting with it alltogether, suppose i'm like techquest and don't give up easily, thanks anyway!

 

[oneman]

Hi oneman, if you go back to post 21 I actually recoverd quite a few files from the drive before the pc stopped booting with it alltogether, suppose i'm like techquest and don't give up easily, thanks anyway!

I saw that but as mentioned the drive is not working at all now

 

[toeknee00]

Could always try the old "Drive in the freezer" trick....

Tis a long shot but what you got to lose...??

 

[oneman]

Could always try the old "Drive in the freezer" trick....

Tis a long shot but what you got to lose...??

I have seen that work for a stick head, but never for a head crash. The other thing to try if you have a sticky head is to drop the drive onto a solid surface from about 12" (not while the drive is running).

 

[willin]

Hmmm, I have also heard of this shocking/bumping the drive, thing is how hard or soft to do this or whatever, as toeknee00 says nothing to lose, btw just say one of these tricks worked and I could access the drive, could I copy everything to another drive or partiton the sata drive HD2 and copy everything?

don't think this thread is finished yet!!

Thanks guys.

 

[oneman]

Hmmm, I have also heard of this shocking/bumping the drive, thing is how hard or soft to do this or whatever, as toeknee00 says nothing to lose, btw just say one of these tricks worked and I could access the drive, could I copy everything to another drive or partiton the sata drive HD2 and copy everything?

don't think this thread is finished yet!!

Thanks guys.

Just copy as much as you can onto your working drive. If any of the tricks do work, they may only work for a few minutes so you need to work quick.