Dead hard drive? Help please (or kill me)

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Synergy

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Hey guys. Here's my problem - I restarted my computer yesterday and when it started to boot up, I got a "disk boot failure, please insert system disk and press enter" message. Inserting a Windows disk does nothing. It won't boot from a disk even after I changed the BIOS. I tried getting a USB enclosure today from Microcenter, but the douchebag salesman gave me one only for IDE connections and I stupidly didn't check the fine print until it was home.

I will be exchanging the USB enclosure tomorrow, but does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm freaking out a little bit (a lot) because my nearly finished scripts are on that drive, and its the end of the semester. I hadn't backed up in a few weeks, and I know it was a stupid oversight.

This is a 9-month old self-built rig with the following specs, in case they're helpful:

Seagate Barracude 7200.10 3gb/s 320GB - problem child
E6600 Core 2 Duo @ 2.4Ghz
nVidia 680i SLI mobo
2 GB Kingston HyperX RAM
GeForce 7950GT
Windows XP Home
DVD drive/DVD-RW drive
600w thermaltake PSU

I would really appreciate any help. I tried finagling the USB enclosure to work with my drive by using an adapter piece from my mobo, but even though the drive letter shows up, it gives me I/O errors. I skipped the IDE connection.

Thanks so much for any and all help.
 
hit delete to get to mobo settings and mae sure that your hard drive is set to be the main booting order sequence.
 
It doesn't sound to good.... however I have had a bad CMOS battery in my laptop and got that error message. It could also be that for some reason Windows has been corrupted.

*Theory*
I'm thinking if you had another hard drive with Windows installed you might be able to set that as the master and your old hard drive as slave. Then you may be able to go through My Computer and at least have access to some of the files.

Goodluck!
 
[quote name='necrojustice']You don't have a floppy drive installed do you? Back in the day having some random floppy inside would cause that error....[/QUOTE]

Good point, so can a CD/DVD that's in your optical drive. And that can still cause a problem today, believe it or not.

Go to your BIOS and make sure that you have the boot order set to HD first, then optical/floppy/whatever else you want (the only time you want anything other than HD first is if you're re-installing Windows from a CD and which case you want the computer to read the optical drive first). Eject all discs/floppies/whatever and see if that helps.

After that, I'd say try safe mode. If that still doesn't work, I don't know what else I'd do other than try an external.

In most cases like this, it's a Windows file that's corrupted. Your work files and data should be fine.
 
[quote name='necrojustice']You don't have a floppy drive installed do you? Back in the day having some random floppy inside would cause that error....[/quote]

No, I didn't add one because I don't use them anymore. Good suggestion, though.

[quote name='E_G_Man']It doesn't sound to good.... however I have had a bad CMOS battery in my laptop and got that error message. It could also be that for some reason Windows has been corrupted.

*Theory*
I'm thinking if you had another hard drive with Windows installed you might be able to set that as the master and your old hard drive as slave. Then you may be able to go through My Computer and at least have access to some of the files.

Goodluck![/quote]

[quote name='Vinny']Good point, so can a CD/DVD that's in your optical drive. And that can still cause a problem today, believe it or not.

Go to your BIOS and make sure that you have the boot order set to HD first, then optical/floppy/whatever else you want (the only time you want anything other than HD first is if you're re-installing Windows from a CD and which case you want the computer to read the optical drive first). Eject all discs/floppies/whatever and see if that helps.

After that, I'd say try safe mode. If that still doesn't work, I don't know what else I'd do other than try an external.

In most cases like this, it's a Windows file that's corrupted. Your work files and data should be fine.[/quote]

I set the BIOS correctly, same errors. I think tomorrow I'm going to buy a new hard drive and install the busted one as a slave, and see if I can access my files and whatnot. I can't let myself think about losing everything, or I may do myself bodily harm.
 
Can you hear your hard drive spinning up when you open your case and turn on the system? Does BIOS detect the hard drive? Your next move of buying another HD to do further diagnostics is what I would suggest too.
 
If you have access to another computer you can download a Linux Distro that will run form CD, like Knoppix, then you can boot your system, check if your hard drive is accessible and copy the data to a USB stick.
 
ok, I'm a systems administrator for a defense contractor, and listen close.

1. Set the broken one aside and stop messing with it, you'll make it worse.
2. Get a plastic baggy, and put the HD in it. Then put the HD in the freezer. (yeah, seriously, the freezer. But only for 12-14 hours at the most, and at least 6-8 hours)
3. Visually think of what you need to get to, you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives.
4. Get a new HD, you need one anyways. Install Windows. Buy an extra SATA cable if you need a new one as well. You'll need it. You can put it in an exclosure, I'm sure, I've just never tried it.
5. Leave your box open... and turn off your machine after installing windows.
6. plug in your frozen HD and boot it up.
7. get what you need before the HD warms up and expands the metal breaking it all over again.

I use this ALL THE TIME to get server data off dead drives that weren't backed up.

REMEMBER - this process only works a couple times before it doesnt work at all. And get what you NEED first, and then try to get whatever else you need later. Get all your docs and personal items FIRST.
 
I didn't see specifically where you had tried this (you said you "changed the BIOS" but I'm not sure what you mean). Set CD ROM to boot device 1, insert your XP disk, and choose "start with CD ROM support". As a previous poster metioned, I've seen this error cuased by a corrupt Windows boot file, like a video driver.
 
[quote name='Mookyjooky']ok, I'm a systems administrator for a defense contractor, and listen close.

1. Set the broken one aside and stop messing with it, you'll make it worse.
2. Get a plastic baggy, and put the HD in it. Then put the HD in the freezer. (yeah, seriously, the freezer. But only for 12-14 hours at the most, and at least 6-8 hours)
3. Visually think of what you need to get to, you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives.
4. Get a new HD, you need one anyways. Install Windows. Buy an extra SATA cable if you need a new one as well. You'll need it. You can put it in an exclosure, I'm sure, I've just never tried it.
5. Leave your box open... and turn off your machine after installing windows.
6. plug in your frozen HD and boot it up.
7. get what you need before the HD warms up and expands the metal breaking it all over again.

I use this ALL THE TIME to get server data off dead drives that weren't backed up.

REMEMBER - this process only works a couple times before it doesnt work at all. And get what you NEED first, and then try to get whatever else you need later. Get all your docs and personal items FIRST.[/quote]

This is exactly what I came to this thread to recommend.
 
[quote name='Mookyjooky']ok, I'm a systems administrator for a defense contractor, and listen close.

1. Set the broken one aside and stop messing with it, you'll make it worse.
2. Get a plastic baggy, and put the HD in it. Then put the HD in the freezer. (yeah, seriously, the freezer. But only for 12-14 hours at the most, and at least 6-8 hours)
3. Visually think of what you need to get to, you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives.
4. Get a new HD, you need one anyways. Install Windows. Buy an extra SATA cable if you need a new one as well. You'll need it. You can put it in an exclosure, I'm sure, I've just never tried it.
5. Leave your box open... and turn off your machine after installing windows.
6. plug in your frozen HD and boot it up.
7. get what you need before the HD warms up and expands the metal breaking it all over again.

I use this ALL THE TIME to get server data off dead drives that weren't backed up.

REMEMBER - this process only works a couple times before it doesnt work at all. And get what you NEED first, and then try to get whatever else you need later. Get all your docs and personal items FIRST.[/quote]

I 100% Agree with this. However since this is a Last ditch method, I have somethings to try first.

First Unplug everything from your computer, spare the power and the monitor. See if it works then, if it does one by one replug everything in. I once had a problem where my computer wouldn't boot when my mouse was plugged into it.

Second get a program called MiniPE, look on torrent sites or I can send you a copy of it. It is basically a working windows installation that will boot off of a disc and has a bunch of preinstalled programs. With that you can browse your computers HDD and copy the files to a thumb drive or external drive. You can also use HDD tools on there to try and fix it.

If those steps don't work, try mookyjookys idea.
 
I can only 2nd ( or 3rd) the suggestion to freeze the drive, and then hook your drive to a working computer (either get a new drive and install windows, or use a friends computer). Go for the most important data first and work your way back. if its not making strange noises (mainly clicking) you SHOULD be able to recover it...

If when you mount it to a new computer you can't see the drive in windows... then you may have a boot sector or partition error... in that case I'd recommend buying (or downloading...) a copy of partition magic, I've fixed a few partition errors with this program and restored a TON of data from what seemed to be a lost cause. Good luck, let us know how it turns out!
 
Before you try freezing your hard drive, I would definitely try removing your CMOS battery, and resetting your BIOS. Especially do this if you have any overclocking on your computer.

The exact same thing happened to one of my computers when I was testing out memory timings. For some reason, the BIOS would not boot anything, be it floppy, HDD, or CD. I turned off the power supply, pulled the CMOS battery, and used the reset jumper on my ASUS A8V. Afterwards, the computer booted up like a charm.

If you are still having problems, I highly recommend using a Knoppix Live CD and a USB drive, as someone else mentioned. On another computer, I had an issue where after a seemingly problem-free Windows XP shutdown, upon reboot I would get an NTFS.sys error. I couldn't even use Safe Mode or Recovery Console without the error. I used a Knoppix CD, and not only backed up any data not already backed up, but I also was able to use NTFSFix to restore Windows.


Just a few suggestions. Hope it works out.




-Noise
 
I'd like to doubt that it's the Barracuda. I have one as well and it's going on 5 years now :p

But keep trying, and the Linux Live CD idea is a good onie as well.



Always backup your backups of your backups!


[quote name='Mookyjooky']ok, I'm a systems administrator for a defense contractor, and listen close.

1. Set the broken one aside and stop messing with it, you'll make it worse.
2. Get a plastic baggy, and put the HD in it. Then put the HD in the freezer. (yeah, seriously, the freezer. But only for 12-14 hours at the most, and at least 6-8 hours)
3. Visually think of what you need to get to, you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives.
4. Get a new HD, you need one anyways. Install Windows. Buy an extra SATA cable if you need a new one as well. You'll need it. You can put it in an exclosure, I'm sure, I've just never tried it.
5. Leave your box open... and turn off your machine after installing windows.
6. plug in your frozen HD and boot it up.
7. get what you need before the HD warms up and expands the metal breaking it all over again.

I use this ALL THE TIME to get server data off dead drives that weren't backed up.

REMEMBER - this process only works a couple times before it doesnt work at all. And get what you NEED first, and then try to get whatever else you need later. Get all your docs and personal items FIRST.[/quote]

This is wonderful advice. It really does work - it sounds farfetched, but it's actually a good place to start. Grab your essentials first.
 
[quote name='Mookyjooky']ok, I'm a systems administrator for a defense contractor, and listen close.

2. ... Then put the HD in the freezer. (yeah, seriously, the freezer. But only for 12-14 hours at the most, and at least 6-8 hours)
3. Visually think of what you need to get to, you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives.

Mooky ;

good to know that work in the 'defense contractor' realm involves freezer trickery as opposed to relying on sound backups :) - Though you got to admit there's some parallels here with Bush's administration: "you may only have 10-15 mins to get to your file when the time arrives" etc.. .hehe.

OP may also want to deploy a decent FILE RECOVERY util such as FILE RECOVERY PRO (avail. as demo for free, you can first scan and then decide if it's worth to pay dependent on if it's successful).
 
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