Think my Hard Disk has crashed

[Bucknaked]

Getting a noise coming from the drive. Sounds like the little needle is hitting the disk. Windows won't install on it. The drive is recognised. Just won''t install windows. Being a new drive a SATA, wondering if theres anything special i need to do.

[Black XR6]

yeah, pray!

[Bucknaked]

Geeze I hate Technology. Life is mean't to be easy. Well this is the first time a drive has ever died on me. I've had a heap. So i guess it had to happen one day

[Black XR6]

I guess you could do a surface scan on the drive to identify any bad sectors and maybe avoid the whole drive becoming screwed. but for me once a drive is losing sectors I dont trust it.

[Bucknaked]

I got the 5 year warranty on the drive, so hopefully if it is bad, they will replace it. Otherwise it will become an expensive frizbee

[Black XR6]

Then do the surface scan and take the results to the shop for a new drive if there are faulty sectors.

[BlueRaven]

Originally Posted by Bucknaked

I got the 5 year warranty on the drive, so hopefully if it is bad, they will replace it. Otherwise it will become an expensive frizbee

Thats a pretty good deal - i'd take them up on it :P

[the_scotsman]

Yea, sounds pretty much like the drive is knackered....if its making any kind of noise like that, dont waste time trying to install anything or run tests on it...just take it back...

[S3SR]

if the noise is coming from the HDD and its SATA and u just got it well thats a shipping and handling mishap but do a surface scan take it back for a working one...other wise theres a few programs on the net (ill install one and show you what it does) but they can bring almost any HDD from the dead

DO NOT open any computer parts..they not like a car part some u open and its all over - just incase u got silly and wanted to experiment

[Bucknaked]

Originally Posted by FALCONSR

if the noise is coming from the HDD and its SATA and u just got it well thats a shipping and handling mishap but do a surface scan take it back for a working one...other wise theres a few programs on the net (ill install one and show you what it does) but they can bring almost any HDD from the dead

DO NOT open any computer parts..they not like a car part some u open and its all over - just incase u got silly and wanted to experiment

I'm interested in knowing about the programs for sure. I will contact the store tommorrow and see about a replacememnt. But I am still fairly keen to know how to get one back from the dead

[oyob2003]

If you have your XP PRO disk if that is what you are running, boot from XP CD and do a repair install.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I am having a terrific day today, tomorrow who knows.

[Outbackjack]

If your drive is making noises dont waste any time on it. Replace it. SATA drives are cheap enough now. And if it is under a warranty all the better. Surface analysis of any description wont help, its dead.

Have fun.

[S3SR]

Originally Posted by Bucknaked

I'm interested in knowing about the programs for sure. I will contact the store tommorrow and see about a replacememnt. But I am still fairly keen to know how to get one back from the dead

well in my prime...lol few years ago i wanted to study the 'art' if u can call it that of hacking/cracking and well theres been a few programs which are absolutely amazing...anyways iv got all of the stuff iv collected on cd's and well i left them behind (dont no how much trouble i could get into here in a bigger city) well ill ask mum to post the cd to me and ill go through and find some progs and pass them onto you. (only give u the HDD tools) ah ha just remembered if ur HDD is seagate go to www.seagate.com ? i think thats right and they should have some basic tools there if its maxtor/samsung/western digital/generic go to their websites and they should be able to help u

[S3SR]

found something for u to do bucky

http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000840067578/ have fun

[M14A-Mclaren]

Originally Posted by oyob2003

If you have your XP PRO disk if that is what you are running, boot from XP CD and do a repair install.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I am having a terrific day today, tomorrow who knows.

I wouldn't recommend that unless its the last thing you try before a format, its only screwed up windows installs for me.

[charles_wif_xf]

New HDD's have a feature called SMART (self monitoring analysis reporting and testing). When you start the computer, the BIOS should run this SMART test on the drive. If the drive passes the test and still grinds away like a hack chopping springs, then do surface scan with the Seagate tools (I'm assuming you have a Seagate drive). If it reports BAD, then off to your retailer from whence you purchased it and ask for a new one or your pesos back

[Bucknaked]

Thankyou for the replies. Some great suggestions which i'm going to look into.

The drive is a seagate. I will download the tools as suggested.

Thanks again everyone for the posts.

Cheers

Dwayne

[ON_DUBS]

Originally Posted by oyob2003

If you have your XP PRO disk if that is what you are running, boot from XP CD and do a repair install

FFS :

[Bucknaked]

Spoke with the computer place and they are replacing the drive for me on Saturday. As soon as I mentioned the ticking, they said bring it back for a replacememnt. Which is cool. Thanks again everyone for your replies

[Blue Ice]

Gotta love that 5yr Seagate warrenty.

[SunDrifter]

Originally Posted by charles_wif_xf

New HDD's have a feature called SMART (self monitoring analysis reporting and testing). When you start the computer, the BIOS should run this SMART test on the drive. If the drive passes the test and still grinds away like a hack chopping springs, then do surface scan with the Seagate tools (I'm assuming you have a Seagate drive). If it reports BAD, then off to your retailer from whence you purchased it and ask for a new one or your pesos back

You might want to mention that doing the surface scan won't actually fix anything, (in fact it'll probably only damage the drive more, but any stress will) Doing this will only give you something to tell the return authority guys about it being broken.

If you get any hard drive clunking and the data on there is absoultly essential, turn off the computer ASAP and bring the drive to a place that does hard drive rebuilds to pull your data off. This can cost around $1500.

Otherwise put the hard drive in your freezer in an airtight bag for 2 hours or so and try to recover the raw data off the drive using a recovery program.

Whoever said to reinstall Windows will fix the issue its similar to saying: If you throw a rod out the side of the engine, get a reflash on your ECU and everything will be fine... WTF???!!

[AWD Chaser]

Some of the suggestions in here are very pointless.

If your hard drive is ticking, there is a mechanical fault. No scan or test will correct this or actually picup the problem.

Take it back or replace it. That simple. We had quite a large batch of faulty 120Gb Seagate SATA drives coming in for a few months that kept dying and failing in various ways, etc.... just lost the whole partition usually. None of the recovery programs worked.

[Bucknaked]

Took the drive back, spoke to the salesman and he asked what was wrong. Told him and he gave me a new drive. He didn't have any of the Seagate so he gave me a Western Digital and i'm installing windows on it now. Fingers crossed all is well.

Thanks to all the replies. In the end, and new drive was the key

Hope you have better luck with that drive.

[Mike Gayner]

The sound you described is commonly known as the "click of death". The drive is dead - even if there are good sectors, they will die. Replace the drive, it's gone. If you ever hear clicking from a HDD and you have important data on it, back it up immediately. The drive is dieing.

Edit- D'oh, just read the 2nd half of page 1. Reading comprehension > me.