Is there a disk doctor in the house?

[Myshkin]

Ouch... a couple of months ago my hard drive crashed... somehow the partition table got messed up and it just looked unpartitioned. I just thought it was one of those things that happens, so I re-formatted and started over with what little I had backed up.

Well, it happened again... now I know it is the hard drive failing, as it has started to make ugly sounds. I went out and got a new drive and installed it... I have quite a bit backed up now, but not everything. I was thinking that I may be able to recover some of the stuff on the bad drive, since I can still boot to a skeleton Win95 command prompt located on the drive and see the directories and files. However, booting up with the new drive as master and the old as slave causes problems once it gets to Windows... if I try to open my computer it just hangs looking for everything.

So this is what I was thinking: If somehow I can boot to a DOS prompt with network support I might be able to pull off the few files that I want from another computer on the network. I suspect if I try to look at the drive over the network from Windows it is going to hang... does anyone have any other ideas? I wish there was a DOS program I could use to write the files to my CD-RW, but I haven't found anything like that. Hmmm I might be able to get small stuff using floppies but.... *sigh*

So, should I give it up and resign myself to starting over, or do you think there is any hope? It's not enough to be worth buying any software (well except that it might be useful in the future) or to pay for anyone to recover it... hey I just had an idea... ZIP DRIVE THROUGH THE PARALLEL PORT!!! I'm gonna have to try that... I had forgotten I had one, silly me.

Still, if anyone has any other ideas...

[Dylan]

is it an IBM HDD?

rob has had heaps of problems with IBM hard drives.

[Cheyenne]

Hi, Myshkin.

There is one thing which may help. It sounds like physical damage to either the motor, bearings or other mechanical parts that move the read/write heads over the drive if it's making noises.

One thing that can sometimes help is if you "refrigerate" (yes, put the drive in the refrigerator for a few hours) and then hook it up and try to run it. Sometimes this can bring the bearings or other metal parts within "tolerance" for a few minutes, often enough to allow you to get data off of the drive. I have done this a lot with older SCSI II drives that have failed because of age or overheating, and it often gives you 5-10 minutes to extract data.

Good luck with whatever you try! -^

[Myshkin]

Dylan, it's a &^%$#@! Maxtor, 2 years old. I had always bought WD drives before this, so that's what I went with for the new drive.

Chey, thanks for the idea, drive's in the 'fridge now :) I've never heard that tip before... but I am sure it is a physical problem. I can even look at parts of the disk without trouble in DOS, but if I venture into certain directories it starts acting up... hasn't given me a failure message yet, it just sits there spinning the disk. Or just giving me false hope perhaps ;) I'm hoping to get off some digital pictures from the last few weeks, but still it's at least 20 MB.

Wish me luck :p Oh... duh you Chey already did hehehe

[Spiderman]

That is a bummer :( I don't know if DOS drivers exist for your cdr but maybe a cdr dos drivers search on it may bring something up?

[Cheyenne]

Yes, the theory behind the regfrigeration technique is that the drive stopped function when it "just" barely went out of tolerance and parts become inaccurate just barely enough to no longer function. If you refrigerate the drive thoroughly, the metal shrinks, sometimes establishing just enough proper fit (at least until the drive and or parts heat up) to make the drive work for a short time. If refrigeration doesn't do it, you can try the "freezer" for a few hours.

Of course, if the drive's read/write heads and the platters have come into contact at speed, well, that's definitely an "ouch".

[Dylan]

wouldnt freezing it cause condensation on the inside of the drive and screw somthing up?

[Wazza]

i would hate it if my hard drive went kapoot....ive got 1Gb of just pics and other stuff.. and NFS stuff.. mostly from a while back, as i dont download things now... :D .. not even mp3s... i buy CDs.. :)

[Mickk]

You say you can use the new drive as master and the old drive as slave, but when it gets to Windows it 'hangs'?

Try using a boot disk and just getting it to the C: prompt.

That way you should be able to see the files you want on your old HDD and transfer across the ones you want.

The other thing is you, *might* be able to salvage it, after you get your info off, using various advanced programs (Spinrite for instance).


Dylan: HDD's are fully sealed and (as far as I know) they are assembled in a 'clean' (dust free and temperature/humidity controlled) enviroment, so I doubt very much if there would be any condensation, besides which, the drive certainly sounds like it is on the way out, so it doesn't really matter!

[Myshkin]

Mickk, the short answer is NTFS... but I thought it through and have a work around going on now that will work I believe. I did do the Zip drive thing, and it works but is so slow that I am now trying to copy from one FAT drive to another in DOS, then use that third drive with the NTFS WinXP HD.

[Mickk]

Originally posted by Myshkin
Mickk, the short answer is NTFS... but I thought it through and have a work around going on now that will work I believe. I did do the Zip drive thing, and it works but is so slow that I am now trying to copy from one FAT drive to another in DOS, then use that third drive with the NTFS WinXP HD.

:eek:

:nono:

Stop swearing at me! ^_^

Heh, I don't know what NTFS means but I hope I don't catch it! lol

As for the Zip drive thing working but being slow, heck, it was *working* and you were getting your info!

Better a slow retrieve that you know is going to get you most of the info off the old drive, than a fast retrieve that might only get you a tiny bit.

At any rate, good luck dude, hope you get it sorted!

[Myshkin]

Hehehe sorry Mickk... NTFS is NT File System, which is the file system that I used when I formatted the new hard drive for WinXP. If you start up your computer in DOS mode, you can't view the contents of an NTFS drive. The dying drive uses FAT32 (File Allocation Table), which is from Win9x/ME and is viewable in DOS... and the other drive I have is also NTFS... so I was thinking of re-formatting the latter with FAT32 so that I could see both in DOS and copy over the necessary files.... HOWEVER...

A big thanks to Chey for her refrigeration suggestion... it actually worked hehehe. I had about 45 minutes to copy some stuff over in Windows... however several files were in bad sectors I guess. I managed to get a lot of stuff though... at least 1 GB. I was working through my digital pictures (some are corrupted) as it got slower and slower... and finally stopped working. I am going to try it again to see if I can get some more pictures off.

[NameX]

The Freezer also sometimes helps with scratched CDs.-^

[Cheyenne]

NameX: The Freezer also sometimes helps with scratched CDs.I'm going to have to remember that one! Thanks, NameX!Myshkin: ...refrigeration suggestion... it actually worked heheheWow, I am glad to hear that. To me, it always seems like something of a "magic" trick. I'm always pleasantly surprised when it works. Remember, if it gets a bit looser, you can use the "freezer" for deeper cold.

[AccadaccA]

I tried to post this lastnight but it kept timing out.

Mysh : Does it make a grinding noise? My IBMs would grind, grind, grind in sets of three with approximately a one second pause between the next set of three grinds.
Even as a secondary drive if it passed detection on boot, Windows Explorer would hang to the sounds of my HDD grinding. The Desktop was fine but trying to view drives wasn't. Sounding familiar so far?

I am sure it was initially FAT (File Allocation Tables) related, which soon turned into bad sectors and unless you really, and I mean, really want the old stuff I would advise you to count your losses now instead of backing it up only to transfer the same probs on to the new HDD at a later date. For as strange as it might sound (even to those who are very familiar to FATs) it's like a cluster or two, ten, whatever, may have reverted to FAT16 amongst other clusters of FAT32 (the typical Win9x setup).

I have pin-pointed which of my back-up CDs will cause a new HDD to start grinding on the next bootup after I have copied files over.
Unfortunately this backup CD had all of my latest drivers and edited NFS cars/tracks so I would install Win98 and before long I'd use the stuff off this CD. Everything is sweet until the next morning when I start the puter and.... well, themz the breaks. :(


Yeah Dylan, too much of a coincidence that I was going thru so many HDDs all with the same, only too familiar, "grind, grind, grind".


Now, without making it worse by continued read attempts, just download and use anything Maxtor have for repairing bad sectors. IBM have a "Drive Fitness Test" utility if Maxtor doesn't have their own. I just typed "IBM bad sectors" into Google and it (IBM utilities page) was at the top of the search results page.

This life saver got me going for two weeks of constant use, more than enough time to back up older stuff of the drive, before the probs started. I had to then run it again a second time which saw me through until the upgrade. Both times were just using the light sector recovery. I had planned to give it a full format etc and try the full strength option of that Fitness Test utility.

Unfortunately the ol' IBM took a flying leap (litterally) when I upgraded. I had it sitting loosely in Jono's case and forgotten about it for a few days then when I went to put his system together I cleaned the dust out by shaking the bare case upside down. DOH!!

Anyway Mysh, with the Fitness test, I think it was 10Mb to download then you install it (on a good HDD) and it will guide you to making a bootable floppy disk with all the fix-it goodies on it. Then put your faulty HDD as master and boot from the floppy. It's all pretty basic menu instructions from there.
Be sure your BIOS seqence is set to boot from floppy first.

It will detect the HDD exactly as to which brand, model and what size it is. There is a repair sector and save data option or a straight out repair bad sectors and format option. I'm sure you will opt for the data recovery one.

Don't panic when the grinding starts again. This is part of the sector repair process. First time I quickly shut down but then decided I'm not getting anywhere that way and gave it another chance. Just turn the stereo (Hi-Fi) up or mow the lawn as it's painfull to sit through.

It will appear to hang (pausing long enough to repair) but if you take note of the numbers displayed the next stopping point will be slightly different. Very similar but slightly different. Just let it run it's course until complete. I had a few Bad sectors close together then a few more near the end.

The light repair didn't actually "repair" my sectors into good ones but it atleast got me going again and as I said I had planned to try it on the full repair option, I just never got to that stage. :rolleyes:

Windows fired up in it's usual manner and everything was basically normal. I backed heaps onto CDs and deleted the stuff I had copied from that bad backup CD just so I didn't forget and tried to open the folders etc.

Treat it like a virus!! Nothing is that important that you want to risk destroying another HDD over. Unless you can remember what the last things you may have copied over from a backup CD etc. If you hadn't copied anything over the few days before it all started then it could be any file(s) or folders on any section of your drive and the gamble would be like playing "Russian roulette" when using your backups.



Here's the IBM Fitness Test/utilities page link (http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm) it does identify other brands too.

Good luck with it mate.