From:
Scott Wittell, MCP A+
I had to
laugh when I saw this easy fix, and it does work. We were able to bring back a
failed drive in an older HP server running NetWare 4.11. First step is to
remove the drive from the machine. Second, hold the drive flat in your palms.
Third, shake the drive a few times in an up-and-down motion, like you're trying
to hammer a nail. Don't let the drive hit the floor though. I've used this
technique on numerous occasions, works every time.
From:
Colle Davis
The
Hair Dryer Method
For the
last resort (when the drive really did die, it-is-not-even-spinning type
crashes), there is a possible solution that comes from the early days of hard
drives. Back then you were not supposed to turn them off—I don't know why but
IBM said never turn them off unless you are standing there.
One of our
main computers was housed in a closet where I could not hear it well and had a
power supply failure that apparently took days to complete. I happened to open
the closet for some other reason and discovered a warm box and immediately went
through the shut down sequence to take it off line for a new power source.
Several
days later, the unit was shut down again for a long weekend of downtime on a
routine maintenance schedule and upon restarting the system the hard drive
would not work. I am pretty good at backing up everything but could not find
the backup disk anywhere. Panic. I am the author of a newsletter that goes to
hundreds of subscribers everyday, and the mailing list was on the dead drive. I
replaced the drive and reloaded everything but was going through sobbing spells
as I looked for solutions to recover the lost data. Data recovery companies
wanted over five thousand dollars to try to recover the data.
A client
of mine told me he once possessed an old 286 that required a hair dryer to get
it running every time he turned it on. The fellow who had built it for him was
an IBM technician and gave him the hair dryer idea because that is what IBM
used to do to restart the drives in down machines. So on the bench machine with
the drive out where the dryer could get to it and still be hooked up, I began
the process. Lo and behold, it worked. While it was running, I downloaded all
the missing data and immediately uploaded it to the new drive. Don't laugh, I
got my outcome and can now say I recovered a fully dead hard drive with my
wife's hair dryer.
From:
John B.
As for me,
I have had good success with this method (about 50-50).
I take the
drive, and suspend it 4" over a plastic carpet tool (one of those things
you see in an office to help the chair wheels go). I then let it
"fall" while still holding it, twice on each long edge, then once
flat on top and bottom. You want firm, but not too hard raps on the plastic. I
find that the carpet underneath seems to cushion the blow just enough. This
appears to work on drives with stuck read-write heads most of the time. If the
center bearing is locked up, nothing short of a miracle will bring it back. In
any case, have a second drive ready to receive your files when you attempt to
restart.
From:
Tony
A. Dead
system—System "A"
B. Known
working system—System "B"
C. I am
assuming that the system board is posting and responding in the correct manner.
And that no Jumpers have been moved on any of the equipment.
Step 1.
Verify power to Hard Drive (HD), Multi-tester (VDC), or another system plug. If
power (See step #2) If no power, swap/replace plugs/power supply.
Step 2.
Swap hard drive from A to B and boot. If boot, then HD is good. (See step #3)
If No-boot, then replace HD.
Step 3.
REMOVE...DISABLE if onboard.... all un-needed devices from System A...modem,
sound card...etc.
NOTE:
Label HD ribbon cables A and B before removal from systems. "A" for
System "A" and "B" for System "B")
Step 4.
Remove from system A and B the HD, and ribbon cable that connects it to the
motherboard...(MB)
Step 5.
Swap drive and cables from B to A and connect to MB. If boot then controller on
MB "A" is good (See step #6.) If No-boot then MB controller is
bad.... replace MB.
Step 6.
Return HD's and cables to original systems, Remove HD ribbon cables from both
systems, swap B for A and boot...If boot then ribbon cable on A is
bad...replace. If No-boot then... Balance your check book, and get out the sale
pages...you've got bigger problems!!
From:
Eddie N.
The two
techniques that I have used to get a failed hard drive to come back to life is
to Sys the drive from a boot disk and/or to use the fdisk/mbr command form a
boot disk. I have used these together and independent of each other.
From:
Paul W.
Dead disk
drives?
There's a
bunch of steps I would take if the drive weren’t being recognized by either the
auto setup or manual entry.
1) Check
your Master/Slave/Standalone jumper settings and make sure they are correct and
don't conflict with another device on the same IDE channel.
2) Check
for bent pins on the connectors.
3) Try a
known good cable—Floppy and IDE cables often seem to go down the gurgler at the
worst possible time for some unknown reason.
4) Try a
known good drive on your IDE channel and check the channel. If it doesn't
respond:
·
Try another IDE port (if there's two)
·
Disable onboard IDE and try another I/O card
(one that’s known to be good of course)
5) Try the
disk in another PC.
6) Here's
where it starts getting tricky. By now you must be reasonably convinced you
have a bad case of galloping disk rot. On some drives (not all), if you have an
identical same model drive, you can swap over the logic board. This will let
you know if it is the embedded controller on the logic board. With luck, your
disk will roar into life and you can suck the data off onto somewhere safe.
7) If your
disk is making a hideous noise like a peg-legged man with a vacuum cleaner on a
wooden floor (whirrr, clunk, whirrr, clunk....), then it is likely you have a
dropped head. This is where you have start making decisions about how much your
data is worth, because to go any further is going to cost big time and may
require factory technicians to try and repair the disk in a clean-room
environment. If your data was that important, then it would have been backed
up. (Of course it would have been, they all respond in loud voices)
8) She's
dead, Jim. How fast can you type?
In a
nutshell, this is my summary of the death cycle of a hard disk.
From:
Daniel F.
Get an
identical Hard Drive and swap out the Logic Unit (Electronic Board). Set your
CMOS to auto-detect. You’re good to go!!!
From:
Miles H.
·
Check
cables are on and are the correct way round.
·
Check
jumpers to ensure the disk has the correct setting (depending on otherisks or
CD-ROM used on the same controller, if any).
·
Check
Bios setting for Model of PC is current. Download latest version if necessary.
·
Boot
from DOS floppy, use FDISK to check if disk can be seen. If the disk is there,
then I would suggest using GHOST or similar to copy the image from disk to
disk.
·
If
the disk was not apparently running, I would swap the disk out and install it
into a PC that was working.
·
The
options here would be to have the 'faulty' disk as the master or slave
depending on your situation.
·
If
installed and works as master, ghost the image to the network.
·
If
installed as slave, boot the PC and use ghost to copy from disk to disk or to
Network.
·
If
disk was still in a state of absolute failure, I would suggest contacting the
disk manufacturer to ask their advice.
·
They
may have some low-level disk checking/repairing software.
·
I
would also install a new disk into the original PC with O/S on and ask the user
to ensure all data is put onto the network (if possible).
·
If
all else fails, then you'd have to chalk it up as experience and hopefully
someone would learn to ensure sufficient backup procedure were implemented.
·
Therefore,
the next time this happened it would not matter. You would be able to reinstall
the O/S and Applications (manually or automate) and restore data back to the
user (if held locally).
From:
Lawrence Shipinski
Easy, go
to Maxtor's Web site or Seagate Web site and download the utility software.
It's free. Please back up whatever you can first!
From:
Jake G.
Well, I'm
kind of new to this, but I'll throw my hat in the ring.
First, I
would try flashing the CMOS. If the battery is built into the system board (I
bet it is), then find the CMOS jumper, pull it–—or move it from pins 1-2 to
2-3—then kick the power on for a few seconds. Power down; put the CMOS jumper
where it started. If the battery is removable, then pull the battery and flash
the CMOS.
Try
rebooting.
If that
doesn't work, put the Quick Restore disks in, reboot, and exit to DOS when you
get the chance (I don't remember the exact steps to that). Now, depending on
how this QR was put together, you may have to change to a virtual
–drive—possibly N: and then the TOOLS directory. You may be able to do this
straight from the A: or C: prompt. Run the command FDISK /MBR and reboot.
If it
still doesn't work,then I would have to check into a disk utility you can run
from a bootable floppy (assuming you can even get that far). Don't have a whole
bunch of experience with those. The next step after that is to just swallow
hard and kiss that data bye-bye. You could replace the hard drive but why keep
a relic like that around when you could buy another one five times as good for
the same money the Prolenia cost you when it was new?
From:
Gordon G., IT Manager
The
following is the normal procedure used at my company (before sending the hard
drive to a data recovery agency).
1. Return
the BIOS to the original state. If "auto" for hard drive then
"auto,” otherwise to "user defined" with LBA enabled for
Microsoft's operating systems.
2. If the
system still doesn't boot off the hard drive, then boot off a write-protected
bootable floppy using the same operating system and version as what is on the
C: drive.
3. If
there is no hardware error during the boot process, see if the c: drive can be
accessed at all. If it can be accessed and files and directories can be viewed,
now is a good time to back up files if the physical condition of the hard drive
is suspect.
4. Check
the hard drive with an antivirus program. Sometimes computer viruses damage the
boot sector. A good antivirus program will identify the problem and may even
correct the situation.
5. If
there is no virus found on the c: drive, then run "sys c:" to restore
the boot files to the hard drive. Only run the sys command if you are sure the
BIOS settings are the same for the hard drive as before the problem was
reported. One way to check this is to look at the file and directory structure
of the drive. If you see garbage, then the settings are probably not the same
(or the FAT was corrupted). Reboot the system after running sys.
6. If the
drive boots, you're almost done. If not, then reboot off the diskette and scan
the drive for errors. Reinstall the operating system without formatting the
drive.
7. If the
drive makes any unusual sounds or doesn't spin, then your best option is to
send the drive to a data recovery agency. Attempting to recover data from a
physically damaged disk usually results in further damage to the drive and
little chance of recovering any data later. The best question to ask here is
"What is your time and data worth?"
8. In step
6, I said that if the drive boots you're almost done. What's left? Make that
recovery diskette, make a backup of the drive and thoroughly scan the hard
drive for any physical errors. Perform the scan last, since the drive may fail
during a scan if there are any physical problems with the drive mechanism.
From:
Traci N Thrash
I hope you
have good luck on your data recovery. Usually, the first thing I do is to pray,
then scold the user GENTLY for not making backups. I hope they never ask to see
MY backups.
1. Pull
the disk. Put it in a known working machine. This gets you out of the
malfunctioning environment and into a controlled space, YOUR workbench.
2. Try
"Auto config" to set the drive type.
3. If
"Auto config" does not find the correct drive type, you have two
options:
·
Read the actual specs off the drive label (this
may or may not work, depending upon whether the set-up tech used them or not).
·
Use a disk utility to read the specs off of the
drive.
4. If this
does not work, is the drive spinning?
·
If not, try to "shock" it by setting
it flat upon the table top, applying power, and rapping it on the side a couple
of times with a plastic-faced hammer or handle of a screwdriver. Don't be
afraid to rap it pretty good, these little guys are pretty sturdy nowadays, and
worst case...you already have a broken drive! (Often you will hear the drive
spin up immediately.) Time to BACK UP (Grab the data and run).
·
If it is spinning, power it down and clean the
connector with the cleaner of your choice. I like pre-moistened alcohol prep
pads from a medical supply. Put the cables back on and try again.
5.
Sometimes, it helps to remove the PC board from the drive and reinstall it.
(Connector problem again.)
6. Disk
utilities like SpinRite, Disk First Aid, or Disk Rescue are useful (but only if
the drive is actually spinning.)
In every
case, back up the data the minute you see anything that even looks like a
directory. Have a drive ready to put it on. I like to have a disk drive
connected to my test machine and put everything there ASAP. You might be
advised to use the "new" drive that will go into the user's machine.
Don't put the "bad" drive back unless you just like to make service
calls over again. These steps have made me a hero more than once on my 17 years
as a PC tech and/or salesman. Hope they work for you.
From:
Geoff G.
Here's my
solution to the quiz "How do you bring a hard drive back to life?"
In order
to make the best use of a drive that may be failing, one could take
the
following steps:
1. Check
the system to see if the drive will detect and boot up successfully. If so,
skip to step 5 for backup/data retrieval procedures.
2. If
the drive is not detecting properly on the system, check to see if the problem
can be solved in the systems bios, by either manually reconfiguring the drive,
or by autodetecting it. If this works, skip to 5.
3. If
the drive simply will not work in that system, try putting it in another system
that is working properly with a similar hard drive (the same drive type and/or
size if possible). If the drive works in this system, but not in the original
system, then perhaps the old system has more serious problems such as a bad IDE
controller.
4. Try
booting up on the drive. If it will not boot properly, try FDISK or some other
partition viewer to see if it has valid partitions defined. If no valid
partitions are defined, or if partitions are unformatted, then the data may be
lost. Try redefining to the exact same partitions that were known to exist
before the problems were encountered. If you have a working drive at this
point, but no data, then it is likely that data is gone. If irreplaceable data
was lost, you can try bringing the drive to a hardware shop for professional
data retrieval.
5. If
any of these attempts to revive the drive has succeeded, then immediately bring
the system up and back up any important files to another drive or to removable
media. Run scandisk and/or any other drive checking utilities. If serious
problems are found with the drive, or if you have suspicion that the drive will
continue having more problems like this, then prepare to replace the drive.
While you still have a working system, make a complete backup if possible.
Perhaps the entire drive image can still be retrieved and copied onto the new
drive, and no system re-install will be necessary.
From:
Chris Heizmann
I. If the
drive works intermittently and won’t boot to Windows:
1) Create a boot disk on a different machine if available
(format c: /s).
2) Use the boot disk to start the machine in DOS.
3) Switch to drive c:\.
4) Copy all data files to floppy (more than one disk will be
needed).
II. If the
drive does not work at all.
·
1) Open up the case.
·
2) Locate and remove the Hard Disk Drive.
·
3) Tap on the side of the hard drive with a
screwdriver a few times (not too hard).
·
4) Re-install the drive and start the PC.
·
5) If the PC boots to Windows, backup all data
files via MSbackup.
6) If the
PC won’t boot to Windows, follow the above instructions.
From:
David A. Hunt
·
First establish the correct drive
characteristics (cylinders, sectors, kapazität usw.) from the drive or from
internet if not printed on the casing.
·
Check all cables and connections (Power, EIDE,
or SCSI).
·
Turn on the Power and correct the BIOS.
·
Watch for failures such as controller failure
during bios check.
·
Listen for unpleasant noises (after head crash).
·
If the PC won't boot from disk, use a boot disk
in the floppy and establish if drive C is available.
·
If not, try Fdisk and see if a drive is visible
(if not, it's starting to look bad...).
·
If visible and reachable, copy any important
data to floppy disk (if possible) or another drive if available.
·
Revive the boot block, and try booting from the
drive again.
·
If the drive wasn't visible, then remove the
drive and try to revive it in another PC.
·
Sometimes removing the drive and gently shaking
it can help to revive it if the user hasn't been using his PC on a regular
basis, especially in older PCs.
Anyway, this a problem one can spend hours with, it just
depends on how important the data was. Only cowards work with a backup!!!!
From:
Mauri Presser
·
Check the CMOS setup for drive settings.
·
If an auto detect drive option is there, use it.
·
Save the settings and reboot.
·
Listen to see if the drive is spinning by
putting your ear close to the drive (hopefully the drive is not so loud that
you do not need to get close to it to hear it).
·
If it does not spin, shut down the computer.
·
Check to make sure pin one of the cable is on
pin one of the drive (you might have seen a steady drive activity LED lit up if
it was backwards).
·
If one was on one, then physically remove the
drive and FIRMLY holding on to it, twist your wrist in an attempt to break the
"sticktion" (bearings stuck) free.
·
Hook the drive back up and power up to a boot
floppy.
·
If it spins up now, try FDISK or other
third-party software to see if it recognizes the partition(s).
·
If not, try Norton Disk Doctor or equivalent to
try and recover the partition.
·
If it does see the partition (or if you
recovered it) try and read the files.
·
If not, back to Norton Disk Doctor.
·
If this does not work, it's time for Ontrack or
other data recovery service (if the client will pay!). Good hunting!!
From:
Karl DeGraff
The most
successful methods I have used are:
1. Find a
computer with the exact same operating system (Win 95, Win 98, etc.) that you
can use as a surrogate host. This works best if the secondary IDE channel is
unused, allowing the private use of that channel by the ailing drive, and
usually eliminating the need of changing jumpers.
2. Go to
the drive's manufacturer's Web site (or use a drive parameters database) to get
the actual physical drive parameters.
3. Set the
surrogate computer's BIOS parameters to expect the ailing drive and turn it
off. Auto is the best initial setting. Make sure the second IDE channel is
enabled and power management is off, at least for the hard drives.
4. Cable
the ailing drive to the surrogate computer's secondary IDE channel using a
reasonably long IDE cable (see reason for long cable below).
5. If the
drive does not spin during power up when it should (note that some SCSI drives
have delayed spin ups), take the drive, hold it in the fingertips of both hands
(spider on a mirror style), and rotate the drive's casing around the disk
platters inside suddenly (the reason for the long IDE cable). The most
effective motion is to prepare by rotating slowly to a starting position where
your fingers are turned "up toward" your chest as far as is
comfortable for you wrists, then suddenly rotate "down out" from your
chest as far as is comfortable, and then immediately snap back to the original
position. This technique works by moving the casing with respect to the
platters based on the principle of inertia and will often allow a drive with
"frozen" bearings to spin up one more time. Do not expect this
technique to work twice!
6. If the
drive does not spin up, see a drive/data recovery lab that has the ability to
disassemble the drive to get at the platters and recover the data from them by
using specialized clean room equipment. When performed by a qualified lab, this
process is quite successful, but very expensive—backups are much cheaper!
Choose the right lab, you usually only get one shot...
7. If the
computer recognizes the drive, proceed on to recovering the data by any means
you desire. Note that since the drive is not the boot drive and host operating
system, all of the boot and operating system information are accessibl–e—no
"in use" files!
8. If the
computer does not recognize the drive, especially if set to Auto, go to the
BIOS and set the drive parameters to the manufacturer specified values and
reboot. If still no recognition, try adjusting the values for sector
translation. There are several options for the primary translation type
(Normal, LBA, Large, etc.), but please note that there may be other settings
that also effect drive communications. These other settings usually have values
of Yes/No. Some of these other settings are "large drive" (note there
are many different names for this setting), "enhanced mode,” and
"block mode.” The important thing is to try different combinations of any
of the settings that effect hard drive communications for the second IDE
channel. Hint, make a list of all of the possible combinations and check off
each one as you try it.
9. Most
important, try not to let anything (e.g., operating system or
"fix-it" programs) mess with the disk contents until you have
exhausted all other avenues of access. These programs are great, but should be
reserved as the first line of defense against software corruption and the last
resort for hardware corruption. If your problem is a hardware issue, these
programs will usually "finish the job" in terms of denying you the
possibility of recovering you data. Only use them AFTER the hardware problem
has been corrected.
From:
Dan Miley
I've had
this happen before, and one thing that worked for me involved the following:
The Hard
Disk Assembly (HDA) is usually separate from the IDE controller board. If the
controller board is the bad part, the data is still good, you just cannot get
to it. The symptoms for this are: Disk not spinning up at all, "drive not
found," or "no boot disk available" type messages.
I've
swapped the data module (HDA) from the bad drive controller to a good
replacement drive. Usually it's just 4-6 screws and a couple small cables. Use
static care procedures as always when working with computer parts.
If the
data is good, send the new HDA and bad board back to be fixed, put the good
drive (with original data) back in, reboot, and away you go.
From:
Jack Ho
·
First of all, get yourself a Win95/98 startup
disk and an emergency boot disk from your favorite virus-scanning software and
disk-repairing programs.
·
Second, note the number of drives in the system
and reboot the machine. When it boots up, make sure you can hear the all drives
spin up. If the spinning sounds are confusing, you may have to open up the
case.
·
If any of the drives didn't spin, turn off the
PC and take the computer case off. Carefully unplug the drive cables and power
cables and reconnect them. Then power up the system. If the drives still do not
spin, swap the power cables and try again. If they still do not spin, then you
know for sure those drives are dead. To retrieve data from these drives, you
may have to take them to a nearby data recovery center and be prepared to spend
some bucks. If they spin after you swap the cables, then you've got power
problems, and you need to replace the power supply on the system.
·
If the drive is spinning but the system does not
recognize it, such as "invalid drive specification" or "disk
0" errors, cold boot the machine and enter CMOS setup. Make sure the disk
controller (whether it is IDE or SCSI) is enabled. Set it to AutoDetect if it
is an IDE drive. Set the correct SCSI options (by entering the appropriate SCSI
utility) if it is a SCSI drive. Since the system was working before, I assume
the SCSI IDs and master/slave parameters are correct. After the correct options
are set, reboot the system. For an IDE drive, if the system still does not
recognize it, manually enter the drive parameters in the CMOS set up and reboot
again. If the system has a CD-ROM drive, note if it was being recognized by the
system. If the system does not recognize both hard drives and CD-ROM drives,
take the computer case off and replace the IDE cables (or SCSI cables if they
are SCSI drives). Note any broken pins when you replace the cables. If there
are any broken pins, you may have to replace the drives or motherboard.
·
After you've replaced the cables, if the drives
are still not being recognized, the drives may be bad. If you have a spare
working drive, plug it in. If it works, then you know the other drives are bad:
either a severe virus has contaminated the drives such that the drive
parameters are overwritten, or there are physical errors with the drives. If
the system does not even recognize your spare working drive, then the disk
controller is bad and needs to be replaced.
·
If the system recognizes the drive but does not
boot up your OS, cold boot your system from a bootable virus ERD and do a
complete scan of the failed drive. Repair any corrupted master boot records if
possible. If the virus-scanning disk does not find any virus, cold boot the
system with a bootable ERD from your favorite disk repairing software such as
Norton Disk Doctor. If this still does not help, but you are able to access the
data from a floppy boot disk, you can recover the system by backing up all your
data and reinstalling the OS on the hard drive. If the failed drive can’t be
accessed from a boot floppy and is not repairable by any "disk
doctor" programs, take it to a data recovery center.
From:
Robert K. Kuhn
Since you
did not state what kind of hard drive this is (MFM, RLL, SCSI, ESDI, IDE/EIDE),
I'm going to assume IDE/EIDE.
An
"Invalid Drive Type" error usually means that the wrong drive type
has been selected in CMOS. I am also going to assume that the BIOS/CMOS
supports this hard drive size (some older BIOS’s required a third party
software patch; drives that were 500 MB and larger for instance...). If Auto
Detect does not work or if the BIOS/CMOS setup does not have an Auto Detect
feature, then I would do as follows:
1. Verify
that the drive is spinning up and that all the cables are hooked up properly.
2. I would
then verify that the drive itself is configured/jumpered correctly
(master/slave/single drive). Most of your current IDE/EIDE drives have the
jumper setting on the drive itself, which makes it nice. Though some of the
older ones do not, which forces you to call their tech support or search their
Web site for jumper configuration.
3. If I
had access to another computer, I would either try swapping out the cable to
see if I had a bad cable or I would just simply install the "bad"
drive into the other computer and see if the BIOS/CMOS detects the drive. If it
does not, then chances are very good that the drive is kaput. However, if the
other computer does see the drive and I am able to boot up with it, then I have
to assume that there's a problem with the other computer's IDE/EIDE controller.
One last attempt would be to find the geometry of the drive (cylinders, heads,
sectors) and add them in manually. If it booted fine with the other computer,
the geometry can be copied from there. Otherwise, a call to the vendor or a
search on their Web site would be order. If the hard drive controller is found
to be bad, depending on the motherboard (going with the assumption that it has
an onboard controller with both a primary and secondary controller), I would
check the CMOS to make sure that the IDE controller(s) were enabled. Sometimes
you can boot from the secondary IDE/EIDE controller, so I would try that too.
If it boots, great! Time for a new motherboard or perhaps just purchase a new
controller and disabling the onboard controller. But I would seriously consider
getting a new motherboard when budget allows.
4. If I
only had the one computer, then I would have to search for a known good hard
drive (and cable) that the BIOS supports. Then if it too does not boot, then I
would have to guess it's something with the
controller/motherboard.
If it does boot, then I would have lean towards a bad drive.
5.
Sometimes with an "Invalid Drive Type", you can actually boot with a
floppy (assuming that the drive is not an NTFS, HPFS, LINUX, Novell NetWare or
some other format....) and then access the hard drive. If
this can
be done, this might be one way to back up any data. You can set up the
"bad" drive as "slave" and then with a new drive formatted
with whatever format is needed, copy over whatever data that can be read on the
"bad" drive.
Back in
the good old days, when we had a drive that went beyond the 1024 cylinders
(which is 99.99 percent of all the IDE/EDIE drives made since 1992 and on), we
had to "trick" the BIOS/CMOS. This was done by taking the cylinders,
dividing the number in half, and then doubling the heads:
Example:
1138 cylinders, 8 heads, 63 sectors–s—this would translate to 569 cylinders, 16
heads and 63 sectors.
I would
try this trick as perhaps my last resort. But this was used/done on 386/486
machines back in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
One last
attempt, and I doubt that it will work but it's worth a shot, would be to get
Symantec's Ghost or PowerQuest's Drive Image. A trial copy can be downloaded
from their site. See if a drive-to-drive image
can be
made (from the old "bad" drive to the "new" replacement
drive). However, Ghost and Drive Image must be able to read the "bad"
drive's partition. One could look into a sector-by-sector copying tool. Back in
the late 80s, I had one but for the life of me can't remember who wrote it. But
I remember it was shareware. Gibson research, perhaps (the makers of SpinWrite,
an excellent utility for it's time...)
If the
data is that important (mission critical), a drive recovery center would have
to deal with it. But be prepared to pay for it! We've had to use a local data
recovery center (Hard Disks Only) and Gibson Research in the past to rebuild a
bad drive. Not cheap but would have cost us more had we not been able to
recover the data. Gibson Research is perhaps the best out of the two we've
dealt with.
Some other
things to consider include that a bad power supply can also cause a hard drive
not to boot (not allowing it to spin up to full RPM), the amperage required to
spin the motor is more than what the motherboard draws/needs even if it has a
full bus. Also, I've even seen some ISA, PCI, and AGP cards cause conflicts
with onboard IDE/EIDE controllers (usually in the form of IRQ and/or memory
address). Though these are usually funky-specialized boards, I have seen it
happen.
Again, I
am assuming that the drive is an IDE/EIDE. If it's an MFM, RLL, ESDI or SCSI,
then the tactics would differ slightly as each are set up and controlled
differently. But since IDE/EIDE is perhaps the popular and most used drive, I
am going to assume that is the drive.
From:
Jim Davison
Since you
did not state IDE/SCSI, I will assume IDE. I will also assume that drive is not
using a bios modifier like those used to make older motherboards support larger
drives. (I have seen situations where users tried to enter drive specks in
setup for SCSI drives).
I would
use the following steps even considering that you state the user had
"Tried" to manually enter the settings in setup and also tried auto.
The user may not know what they are doing. I also would not trust the error
codes. I would assume the error codes are only letting us know there is a
problem but would not trust the codes to give an accurate description of what
the problem is.
1. In
setup, Try IDE Auto Detect to see if the bios can even see the drive.
If yes,
then I would use that setting and everything should be OK.
If yes,
and the drive still does not boot, I would use fdisk/mbr in case the Master
boot record was destroyed.
If no,
then I would go to step 2.
2. Open
the box and check all power and data cables.
(I have
seen Molex type power connectors lose a connection intermittently even if they
are plugged in tightly) you need to wiggle them around. (I have also seen one
case where the data cable came loose when the computer was moved).
If cables
were the problem, then you should be okay now.
If you
still have a problem, go to step 3.
3. Other
Drives are bad and interfering with the boot disk
In case
anything else is sharing the IDE bus with the drive, e.g., a CD-ROM, then
disconnect anything that is also connected to the IDE bus and recheck the
Master/Slave settings if necessary and try again.
4.
Possibly a faster way to check if the problem is the drive or something else
Remove the
drive and plug it into another computer and see if the other computer can detect
the drive. If yes, then the problem is a cable, motherboard, etc. on the
computer, so go to step 5.
5. CMOS or
Flash problem
Put the
drive or at least a drive back on the computer with the problem. Go to setup
and reload the bios from defaults and then redo the settings and save. Then try
the IDE auto detect. If this does not work and your system has flash upgrades,
then reload the flash. Might as well check for upgrades before refreshing.
After refreshing, then again reload the defaults and save settings. Reboot into
setup and try the auto detects again.
If the
BIOS can now see the drive but the drive still does not boot, then you may need
to reload the OS or at least replace the necessary drivers.
If the
thing still is not working, then it is most likely a defective drive and you
will need to decide how badly you need the data on the drive. If you need the
data, then I would send the drive to a data recovery lab that can extract the
data from a dead drive and save the data to a tape, CD, HD, etc. This can be
expensive but may be worth it.
From:
Ron Charity
A trick I
was told that sometimes works is to remove the drive from the PC (leave power
and data connected), lean it on its side and attempt reboots.
From:
Phil Murphy
First
thing I would do is to check the BIOS to make the sure the disk is set to Auto
and doesn't have any settings in it. Then I would reboot the computer using the
Win95/98 Setup disk and run fdisk to check to make sure that there are
partitions visible. If there are no partitions visible, then I would have to
assume that the data on the drive has departed. Next, if I do see a partition,
then I will exit fdisk and go right the C drive. I would run a directory on it
to see if all of the files are intact. If they have strange names and numbers,
then the drive has suffered a serious malfunction and the data is not
retrievable. If the directory appears to be in good shape, then I would use
Drive Image to make a image file of the hard drive and move it to either a zip
disk or a CD-ROM, for the next time this happens.
From:
Shawn Cole
·
Get a second Hard Drive larger than the current
broke or fairly non-functioning one.
·
Make Disk #1 OLD Drive Slave and the new one
Master because you want the new one to become your Primary Boot Drive.
·
Format and FDISK the New Drive into one or two
partitions. I do two for personal reasons, Format c: so it's bootable.
·
Restart machine with the L&F disk in and
follow the on screen prompts, and it will COPY all the data you choose. When
it’s complete, it will give you a report of success and/or failure on
particular files.
And as
long as the hard drive is not physically destroyed, you will be able to copy
over all the recoverable data . The nice
thing about this is it COPIES only—no writing to the messed-up drive. I used
this very successfully on a drive that the FAT became corrupt on and would not
ID or boot up on.
From:
Tomer Har Nesher
Hi, I have
three ideas:
1) Install
the hard drive on other machine that is running same OS. If the disk partition
is FAT or FAT32, you can start the machine by using WIN98 system diskette
without install the hard drive on other machine.
2) We
found some problems with hard drive that happen after few minutes of work. In
this case, you should disconnect the hard drive from power (by turning off the
machine) for few minutes, then turn it on and back up immediately until it will
be warm again and you'll not be able to read the data. Do it until you'll have all files copied.
3) If you
have same drive (SAME MODEL), you can replace the unreachable disk's main board
and trying to read the data.
From:
NETSPECS
There is
no one way to this matter to the disk drive quiz. So I am going to give it a
try. I have had this problem in the past, actually a few times.
·
I checked to see if there are any viruses that
affected the Fat table of the drive, and then I used a hard drive that was
sys'ed and set the other one as slave. I was able to read the partition and
copy the data over. If that didn't work use ex: Norton disk doctor or any other
disk examiner and see if that was able to correct the problem. Run it off the
first hard drive.
·
One other way it could be done is if you knew
that the controller board on the hard drive was bad is to replace that board
with a exact one off of another PC and go back into setup and use auto to
reconfigure. I have only used this method once and it worked.
From:
Darren Brown
Hmmm....gotta
hate those hard drive problems.....
"The
sounds of the game"
Let’s take
a look at the hard drive itself. Is it plugged in properly? Just ask the
customer a polite question about it possibly being moved or bumped. Loose
cables are the most common problem in a case like this. If it is plugged in
properly, just try to boot it again after checking the connections. Sometimes a
connector did come out a bit on one side and you put it back properly without
noticing.
"Put
the right spin on things"
Next, is
the drive spinning when you turn the computer on? If it isn't, check the power
cable to the drive. If that was fine, tap the drive lightly on the side to see
if it spins up. Sometimes that works (if it does, back it up and order a new
drive immediately!). I encountered a drive that acted like this a year ago. If
you kept tapping it, it kept spinning. So, for three hours, I sat there tapping
this drive until I got all the company's accounting data off of it. Sometimes
you have to make sacrifices for your customers.
"Something
SCSI this way comes"
This may
seem stupid, but is the drive a SCSI drive? Again, check the cables and the
termination. Boot up and check the SCSI bios to see if it is set up properly.
"Back
to the Bios"
If the
drive is spinning and the cables are properly seated, check the "Detect
IDE Hard drives" in the bios. For some reason, on some of the older
motherboards, it will pick up a drive that "AUTO" won't pick up.
"Swap
meet"
The old
"swap" maneuver. Is there another drive in the company that is
exactly the same? Back up that drive and remove it from the other computer.
Remove the logic board on that one and transplant in onto the drive that isn't
detecting. Boot up. If it detects, get the data off of it and return the logic
board to the other drive. Double check that the drive you took the logic board
still works! (Warning! Not for the faint of heart! May result in two defective
drives!)
"Third
Party!!!"
Get out
the big guns. Tiramisu from Ontrack or DrivePro from Microhouse are great tools
to get into spinning drives. DrivePro to set up the drive in the bios, and
Tiramisu to retrieve the data.
"Never
believe everything you hear!"
One thing
to remember, listen to the problem the customer has, but find your own
solution! I fell into that trap once "I tried this and that,” and yet,
after a couple of hours of painful work, I tried the customer’s solutions, too.
Sure enough, the customer may have tried those solutions, but he didn't do them
properly.
These are
presented in no particular order. You will do things differently depending on
the situation (usually check the bios first and see the problem for yourself,
then try to boot it up without doing anything to the machine. Based on the
sounds the drive makes, or doesn't, this will give you a place to start your
problem-solving skills). Also, if the drive does detect, but has bad sectors,
try Scandisk (thorough option) or Norton Utilities Disk Doctor. A bad sector
can make a bad day too. And a rule of thumb for bad sectors, even one grown bad
sector means there is a problem, and should be replaced. Manufacturers may
argue this, but in the field, you don't want to take anything for chance.
I really
hope these help you out.
From:
Rod Lee
My
solution is as follows: Send the faulty drive and a new (fully tested and
compatible) drive to the newly-formed TechRepublic support company where, for a
very reasonable fee, the industry-leading expert technicians will solve the
problem for me and copy all data onto the new disk!
As well as
fixing the immediate problem, a new system will be installed whereby if data is
not backed up within a specified period, or if the disk exhibits any pre-crash
symptoms (whatever they might be!), the disk will be halted and all access to
the disk will be prohibited without a special password known only to
TechRepublic and myself. Thus, for another reasonable fee, I will be able to go
to the customer’s premises and save the day, thereby being accorded the status
of "Hero" for recovering from a catastrophic system crash (and maybe
even getting a cash bonus to boot)!
From:
Michael Dal Lago
Maybe try
the following;
·
Boot from a bootable disk that every good IT
tech has and carries. Now you should carry bootable Windows 98 disks with files
like Fdisk, Format, Chkdsk, and other diagnostics files. Now if you have an NT
system with NTFS, you can boot with OS2 bootable diskettes; with will read
NTFS.
·
If the BIOS still sees the HD but you cannot
access it, your Master Boot Record may be defective. If this is so you may be
able to recover it with the following command (Fdisk/mbr). This should recover
the master boot record so you can read the drive.
·
After that, you may be able to run DOS base
backup software. Make sure that you realize long file names are not supported
by DOS.
·
If you wish to copy files to a different one,
maybe you can use XCOPY32 to copy LFNs.
Of course,
if the user was not backing up the system before this would be a good time to
buy backup software since you will be in the store for the new HD. You may also
use software like GHOST to make a image of the HD when it is running and
install this image and ghost software to a bootable CD. When the system does
crash, which will happen no matter what you do, remember to always plan for the
worse. If you make the CD bootable, you can recover from a crash just by
booting from the CD.
Another
suggestion I would have is have an Application disk that contains all the
applications and a different one for data. Keep a good daily backup of the data
disk and maybe a backup of the application drive when major changes are
performed.
From:
John Dalnes
Already
had this one this week. User deleted command.com and wouldn't boot. Tomorrow's
presentation on the drive. Installed as secondary master in another machine and
transferred data to the server. Reformatted and back online the next day.
From:
John Callison
1. Run
diagnostic, check post, check for error messages. These could indicate controller
failure, etc.
2. Try
hard drive as slave in another computer.
3. If the
above does not get me access to the data, contact manufacturer and overnight
drive to them. They may be able to fix the drive enough to get the data off of
it or repair it without erasing the data.
4. Sell
them a new hard drive and a tape back up or jaz drive, etc. It is best to max
out the sales to them at this point as expensive lessons are usually the best
learned.
5. If they
call again with the same problem, no backups etc., give them the number of your
competition.
From:
Jim Burns
Check or
swap the power supply to see if it's putting out the proper voltage. This can
give a disk failure message during bootup.
From:
Bailey, Vince
I would
try fdisk /mbr to try and restore the master boot record to the drive.
From:
William Perry
I would
remove the hard drive, set it as a slave and install it in another computer as
a slave. Copy data to another location. Run scan disk and defrag if drive will
run at all. Reinstall in original computer and try it. If still fails, go to
step 2.
2. I would
remove the hard drive, set it as a slave, and install it in another computer as
a slave. Copy data to another location. Reformat the drive, install a copy of
startup files, then all other files if they do not contain errors (try opening
them on the host computer).
3. If the
above fails, install a new hard drive and salvage as much data and files as
possible.
From:
Robert Hird
Try the
hard drive as a secondary IDE in another computer, (e.g.: your own, seeing as
you are so nice). After booting, burn the info on CD, and run the disk
utilities from your computer.
From:
Bill E. Garity
I would
try to use Fdisk /MBR—perhaps the master boot record is corrupted.
From:
Sprynet
·
If the drive 0 cannot be accessed at all, not
even by the Setup program, it could be that the cables inside the machine are
not properly connected, or cracked suddenly (heat always dries the plastic wire
cover and sometimes it breaks).
·
If I don't hear the hard disk noise when I turn
on the machine, it can also be that the hard disk is not receiving any power.
In this case I would also check the power cable and the connections.
·
If all is well connected and receiving power,
the I/O controller (onboard or on a separate card) may be damaged. I would try
to connect the ribbon to the other existing port(s). I sometimes connect the
hard drive to another computer too.
·
If the I/O controller is fine, the hard disk is
receiving power, then I boot from a diskette. I always keep DOS diskettes in
all versions (5.0, 6.0, 6.22).
·
Try to access C:\>
·
If it doesn't work, I try the setup program
again. Auto configure will not work? I use USER and type in the parameters
written on the hard disk (of course I have to open the machine to find out). If
it still doesn't wor–k—if when I enter C:\ the computer returns "Bad
command ..." or "Invalid drive...,” or anything for that matter, I
will try Norton utilities or another third-party hard disk utility.
·
If it is a Western Digital, I will try EZDrive
tools. If nothing works, I tell the client to be more serious about backing up
next time.
From:
Dan Nicolay
1.
Complete hard drive failure (catastrophic hardware failure within drive)
(clunking, etc.–)—send out to a lab if data is critical.
2. Can
attempt to manually configure drive in bios–—open case and get heads,
cylinders, etc., if bios won't auto detect.
If that
fails…
3. Place
drive in another system, attempt auto detect, etc. If the drive is detectable,
but not bootable, solution will depend on whether it’s home system, whether it
has network access, etc. By far the easiest solution is making a Ghost image
(Symantec) and use Ghost Explorer to extract essential files. Gives you a
backup and allows you to extract files that frequently aren't even accessible
on a corrupt drive in a DOS or Windows session when attempting data recovery.
A Ghost
image can either be sent to another drive in a system or using a boot disk or
with network protocols (copied to a network drive). With the "ghost"
image, you can check the drive and start over if the failure is not drive
hardware related.
From: C
L Gillies
1. Try
going into setup cmos and correcting the hard drive settings (primary master)
from Auto to User/LBA, whatever it was supposed to be; exit and save settings.
2. If this
does not work, order Symantec's Ghost and make a clone.
Hope this
works. Of course, you could try reinstalling the operating system after
formatting but you'd lose all data without a backup.
From:
Dave Adams
·
The first thing I would do is ask the user what
system he/she normally booted to.
·
Then I would cold boot the PC, go into CMOS, and
autodetect the hard drive.
·
If it did not detect, I would open the unit,
verify the connections and try again.
·
If it still did not autodetect, I would try my
spare test hard drive.
·
If my spare worked, I would test the user's
original hard drive in another computer.
·
Assuming I got the hard drive autodetecting in
the CMOS, I would then verify boot order in CMOS, usually A, then CD, then C.
·
I would next cold boot to a virus scan diskette
and verify the hard drive could be accessed and free of viruses. The diskette I
use automatically removes any viruses detected.
·
If I get to this point, I would again try to
cold boot to the hard drive. Obviously, there would be some type of error
message or symptom at this point to let me know better where I was in resolving
this issue.
·
If I received "missing operating
system" on a Windows 95 machine, I would attempt to transfer the operating
system from the appropriate media. If it was a Windows 98 machine, I would use
a Windows 98 boot disk to boot to an A: prompt and then use the Scanreg
command, view the log, and use an file that was dated long enough ago to
hopefully restore the registry.
·
If it was an NT machine, hopefully the user had a
NT Emergency Boot Disk specific to that unit and I would use it and go the
"Repair" route.
·
After this, I would check with tech support,
because I would not want to overlook something that could help me avoid
reloading her original hard drive, as quite a few users never back up their
data.
·
If tech support came up with a solution, I would
be sure to add it to my notebook so next time I could resolve the issue more
quickly, efficiently, and professionally.
From:
Brad Lewandowski
Well,
since you said you were going to replace the drive, I see the options as these:
·
Boot from a floppy with a full set of DOS
utilities, double checking BIOS settings, fdisk, etc.…
·
Use
Interlnk and Intersvr and start a xfer
·
Yank the drive out, change it to a slave, stick
it in a functioning computer and xcopy/Ghost
·
Maybe the MBR is bad, try copying one over with
Sys command...
·
God forbid you should send the drive to a 'Data
Recovery' place...
From:
P. Christensen
·
Go to bios and ask the machine to automatically
detect the hard drive. Sometimes it loses the hard drive due to a virus or
faulty battery.
·
If the machine finds the hard drive, go in and
do a virus scan. If the battery made the bios lose the info, you shouldn't shut
off the machine until the hard drive data files are backed up. Monkey B virus
will alter the boot sector and make the hard drive disappear.
·
Sometimes you have to be sure that in bios the
machine will boot to A and then C and then make sure it has recognized the C
drive in bios and then do a virus scan.
From:
Murray Voight
·
You need to be able to boot into the system.
·
First get a generic boot disk that will allow
this.
·
If you’re able to boot up, then see if you can
access the C drive through DOS.
·
If you can access the C drive, then you should
be able to access the files on the C drive.
·
If you can't access the files, then try running
a scandisk from the boot floppy.
·
If you can't access the BIOS or the C drive
through a boot disk, then the next step you need to do is shut down the
computer and pull out the hard drive.
·
Once you have the hard drive out you need to
douse it in lighter fluid and immediately expose the non-functioning hard drive
to an open flame.
·
Although the last step is of great controversy,
it will bring great satisfaction to know humans will always have the last word.
From:
Howard J. Castello
Boot from
floppy drive and then try running fdisk/mbr.
From:
Andrzej Bednarz
The answer
to the hard drive question is more complex than you may think, but the bottom
line is that you really need to know how damaged is your hard drive or rather
how much functionality is left in the hard drive.
·
First, I would try to approach the problem by
distinguishing if it is a hardware or software issue. If the problem is
software-related, for example, the operating system is corrupted, the hard drive can be attached as a
"slave" and the important data copied to the "master"
bootable drive. Many times that approach can be used even for hardware-related
problems, for example, when the hard drive is getting flaky, but it's not
broken yet.
·
It is a lot easier to prepare yourself for the
broken hard drive, but to really motivate yourself for any preventive steps,
you'd have to answer the question: would I be still OK if my hard drive crashes
today? Also, how much time do I want to spent for a data and/or system
recovery?
·
Over years, I was developing many different
methods of data recovery and backup, therefore the following is the fastest and
probably the most reliable method of doing so. First of all, install the OS
with all the associated programs and utilities including MS Office, Internet
browsers, etc.
·
When you test everything and you're sure that
everything is the way you want, you can take an image of your hard drive by
using Norton Ghost.
·
For the files that you create from now on until
next computer crash, create a folder called "data" and in that folder
subdirectories for MS Office, PhotoShop, etc.
·
From now on, all you have to do is to backup
your "data" directory to the CD and copy the Ghost image to the
second CD, and if you need to restore your system, it would take you anywhere
from 5 to 20 min to have everything back where it was.
·
If your hard drive snapshot image is bigger than
650 MB, choose option to compress the image during the process. If after
compression the image is still bigger than 650 MB, you can split the image on
as many chunks as you need, for example 20 chunks to backup 13-GB hard drive
without compression.
From:
Mike Fogarty
I have a
really quick, no real science approach to this problem. Assuming that the drive
will still spin, there is a quick, however with some risk involved, solution.
In past
situations, I have successfully accessed a damaged drive by "replacing the
drive.”
This
method involves the EXACT SAME DRIVE as the one in question.
Step 1 With all power off, remove the hard drive in
question and place it on the side where it can be easily accessed.
Step 2 Install the "NEW" drive (a drive of
the same type, and manufacturer).
Step 3 Start the system up and get it to recognize
the new drive. It is important to only start a command line session. Remember
that we are only trying to copy some files here—this is an emergency maneuver.
Also, the drive must be formatted the same as the drive we are questioning
here.
Step 4 With the system RUNNING (be careful, this is
the risky part I told you about, do it in this sequence), VERY QUICKLY detach
the power umbilical from the running drive. Then detach the data ribbon cable
from the running drive.
Step 5 VERY CAREFULLY reach for our drive in question
and attach the data ribbon cable to it. Next, VERY QUICKLY place all four
contacts simultaneously in contact with the drives power connection.
Step 6 Now enter at the keyboard some command—I use
the DIR command. You should see the list of files for the questionable drive
that you have HOT PLUGGED into this system. You should now be able to access
the files needed to get you over the hump!
What has
happened?
The system
"thinks" it has the bootable drive you started it with and will allow
you to use the device with the exception of booting with it, of course! This
approach works quite well on drives that have sector one physically trashed.
From:
Tron
My business
is built on 100 percent On-Site Service. I carry most everything in my van that
a 'shop' would have. I have a power inverter for AC power and two network-ready
systems at my disposal for backing up customer data or to use as a loaner.
Anything to get the customer back in business.
First: I boot from a floppy and run a
program called "IDEID" that will identify the drive. I then compare
these results with what is in the BIOS. I also will see if the BIOS can
automatically and correctly identify the drive. If not, I use the user-defined
fields.
Second: A.) I boot from a floppy and do a
virus scan on drive C:. If C is there.
B.) If C is not ther–e—I carry a few older
hard drives with various boot managers on them. I'll make my drive master and
boot from it letting my boot manager load. This would allow me to see their
drive if I used the right boot manager.
C.) If no boot manager is being used, and C is
not present, I use Norton's "NDD/REBUILD" to recover the dos
partitions. NOTE: ALWAYS MAKE THE UNDO DISK!
D.) If C is now seen, step B may need to be
repeated.
Third: With C back, I'll identify the
version of Dos/Win9X on the system—I carry boot files for all versions back to
MS-DOS 3.3.
Fourth: Boot off of C if possible, "SYS
C:" if it is not possible, Reboot!
Fifth: I use Drive Image to Dupe to an
image on a 8.4 GB (remember the 8.4-GB limit!) drive that I carry with me. I
let the customer put in a password so they feel secure in my not looking at
their data. The above is predicated on the fact that the drive will spin up. If
it doesn't, I sometimes have luck in placing the drive upside-down. Sometimes,
I'll quickly spin my wrist when I turn the power on. The upside-down mostly
worked on the ST1120A/ST3120A drives (Seagate 120M). I have no definitive answer
as to why. The ST138R had a problem with what I call "STICTION.” This is
my opinion, Seagate! I theorize that the armature would get stuck between the
poles of the magnetic fields. In any case, those days are mostly gone.
This is
usually the extent that I go to. After this, the customer must decide if the
data on the drive is worth the cost of the recovery. I end by selling the
customer a new drive and restoring their data from the image. This is usually
on a second visit since I don't make it a habit of stocking drives for sale in
my van.
From:
Peter Becker
This has
worked about 6-8 times over the last 5 years...
I have
found the drive is not spinning...
If this is
the problem, just remove it and rotate the drive quickly and immediately
reverse direction.
You may
have to repeat 2-3 times. It works for a while...
This
appears to be more of a problem with old Laptops.
From:
Bill Rankin
1. First
some background info is needed:
A. Does
the BIOS recognize/see the HD? (Correct drive settings? Disk Manager in use?)
B. What is
the OS? (Win 95/NT/Linux/etc.?)
C. What is
the partition type? (Fat16/32/NTFS/etc.?)
2. If A.
is yes, and C. is Fat16/32, try a boot diskette (Win95/98). A command prompt, a
couple of utilities, and a working parallel port will get your data off safely.
3. If A.
is yes, and C. is NTFS; try a new hard drive as C:, load a new NT/NTFS system,
and access the "dead" NTFS drive as the D:. Sometimes the hard
drive's onboard controller can fail, yet be chained to another's board a là
master/slave mode. Copy the data off ASAP and ditch the old drive to avoid the
temptation to keep it as spare storage.
4. If A is
no, try another computer—the BIOS/motherboard/CPU/memory/IO controller may be
dead or malfunctioning. Troubleshoot the computer later when you have time.
5. If all
else fails, attempt a drive recovery with Hard Drive Mechanic, or similar drive
utility. If successful, copy the data off ASAP.
6. If the
data is EXTREMELY valuable, and if you have a certified clean room/booth (or a
professional service), transfer the disk platters into a exact duplicate
working drive. This is a very costly option due to the requirements of a
certified clean room/booth.
7. Last,
but not least, PREACH TAPE BACKUPS!
LEGALESE:
These techniques have been used by me to recover failed hard drives. Use of any
of these techniques does not in any way bind me, nor any companies associated
with me, liable for your attempts, actions, or losses as your circumstances may
be dissimilar or conditions not covered by the aforesaid instructions. Be sure
to get technical advise from a reliable source familiar with your situation.
From:
Jon Torbert
Well, things
are a little ambiguous here. Do we know that we are working on the Compaq
Prolinea 4/66? Since it didn't specify, I will keep this somewhat general.
·
The first step would be to boot off of a DOS
startup disk and see if you can access drive C. If you can, then you at least
know that you can manually save some crucial files on the machine. If the C
drive is not accessible, then you need to go into the CMOS settings and see if
the proper drive parameters are entered. If it is a newer machine, you can sometimes
find a section in CMOS that will query the hard drive and determine the proper
settings.
·
If there is no such section, then you need to
open up the computer and see if the drive settings, like heads, cylinders,
sectors/track, etc, are listed on the drive.
·
If none are found, get the drive make and model
number and go to the company's Web site and get the parameters. Now go back
into CMOS and enter the proper settings for your HD. Hopefully this will solve
the problem since it was mentioned that the person had been in trying to input
the setting themselves.
·
If the drive still won't boot, and you are
getting a "non system disk" error, I have found that sometimes you
can copy the sys.com program onto your startup disk (I keep a generic boot disk
around with various files like fdisk, format.com, sys.com, etc on it.) and at
the A: prompt type sys c: which transfers the system files to the HD.
·
If you are instead getting Invalid drive
specification errors, you probably aren't able to access the HD at all, even at
a DOS prompt. If this is the case, you probably need to try reviving the drive
with a program like Norton Disk Doctor. You have probably lost partition info
or your File Allocation Table (FAT.) These are things that Norton DD can
sometimes fix. If none of these things works, it is probably a lost cause.
Write it off to experience. Everyone gets this fatal wake up call every once in
a while to remind them about backing up crucial data.
From:
Ronald E Rietz
1.)
Examine all connections inside and outside the PC to ensure they are secure.
Remove and label the suspect drive. Make sure all fans are operating correctly.
Obtain a replacement hard drive and install the operating system and Web
browsing capabilities. Retain the box in which your replacement drive was
shipped in case you need to ship your suspect drive away to a media recovery
firm. Visit the Web site of the hard drive vendor and download the latest
version of the vendor's diagnostic program as well as information regarding
drive's geometry and jumper options. Determine the keyboard strokes to get into
setup mode as well as setting up disk drives for auto detect, etc. Have an
ample supply of blank formatted diskettes readily available. Make sure you have
space available to copy any needed files from the suspect drive. Make a boot
diskette. FDISK, FORMAT, EDIT, SCANDISK, CD-ROM drivers, and the hard drive
vendors diagnostic programs should all be on the diskette.
2.)
Install the suspect drive as a slave. Carefully handle the suspect drive as to
not bump it around at all. It may be in a _very_ fragile state at this time.
Close the PC’s case or otherwise ensure that there is positive air flow across
the suspect drive.
3.) Take a
break, think about how you will do the following carefully and as fast as
possible to avoid possibly damaging the drive further.
4.) Turn
on the monitor, insert your diskette from step one. Turn on the PC and go into
setup. Determine whether or not the setup program auto-detects the suspect
drive. If auto-detect is OK, the disk drive's controller is OK and proceed to
the next step. If auto-detect is not OK, the hard drives controller card(s) are
faulty. Try substituting a different controller card from another drive of the
same type, if available. Assuming the controller is faulty and swapping the
external controller card does not fix the trouble, you have a choice of sending
the drive off to have the controller card repaired in a clean room or to
abandon your data.
5.) If the
auto-detection was OK, let the PC boot with your diskette. Use FDISK and see if
it detects the suspect drive as a partition. If FDISK does not see the drive,
you have an internal problem, quite possibly a damaged read/write head or an
internal IC. You now have a choice of sending the drive off to be repaired in a
clean room or abandoning your data.
6.) If
FDISK detected the partition, you may have a damaged file structure. Boot the
PC with your diskette and then do something simple like a DIR. You are not
ready to even think about writing anything to the suspect drive at this time!
If you can not do a DIR, you may be able to recover the drive with Norton or
your own favorite program. Keep and label recovery diskettes (don't reuse
them), you might need to backtrack.
7.) If you
can do a DIR, try booting up your machine normally. It may be possible to copy
directories and files across to your new drive. Give priority to the user's
data such as mail files, data files, settings, and similar. You probably want
to try copying the registry files as well.
8.) After
you have copied the user’s data, try SCANDISK with the thorough option. Always
save the files and always make recovery diskettes. The saved files may just
need to be examined and renamed.
9.) If
there are any bad spots on the suspect disk, try repairing them with the
vendor's diagnostic tools.
10.) After
you are satisfied you have recovered all of the data from the suspect drive, do
a low level format with the vendor's diagnostic program. Do an FDISK and an operating
system format and then reuse the drive as you wish. A second hard drive in a
system makes a reasonable place to do quick backups as well as for swap files,
temporary files, temporary internet files, and the like.
From:
Tom Hayes
Recently
we had a user with a Tecra 520 CDT lose his hard drive. It could have been a
surge or some other problem but the electronics of the drive wouldn't work. We
simply ordered a new identical drive and exchanged the electronics board
connected to the drive, and we were able to access the drive to recover the
250-MB mail file the user had to have recovered.
From:
Raymond S Cross
Not all
hard drive problems are hard drive problems. I had a situation like this just
recently. Computer booted with a 'fixed disk 0 failure'. Turns out the drive
itself was okayI—it was a motherboard problem, possibly a bad IDE connector. I
had recently put in a new motherboard, so I swapped the old one back in and the
hard disk worked fine!
From:
hhewel
I would
have a spare fdisked and formatted hard drive running whatever O/S was needed,
install it into the down computer as the new master drive, change the jumper on
down drive to slave, reboot, run CMOS, setup auto hard drive detect, and setup
drives, reboot, and retrieve info on the bad hard drive using new temp drive.
Once new hard drive comes in, fdisk, format, install O/S and software.
From:
Coy Thorp
First
thing I would do is eliminate possible problem areas.
·
I'd switch the drive to the secondary IDE chain
and see if it auto configs. If not, I’d try it in another machine if that is
possible (it is possible in my lab).
·
Hopefully, I'd be able to get a drive letter and
boot up to recover data.
·
If neither of these work (and you're usually
lucky if they do), then it's time to boot to a virus scan floppy and scan the
boot sector for viruses.
·
If there are none, then I'd move to a
third-party utility, like NDD, and give that a whirl. If all of those fail,
then I send it out to a data recovery center and drop 1,200 bucks of my
company's money to recover data that the developer should have backed up in the
first place.
From:
Jeffery Aronson
After the
routine checks of CMOS and drive settings etc., the most important step would
be to clone the drive first as it is. I would recommend a program such as
ghost, but there are others available. After completing the drive clone, work
with the drive that you cloned and not the original drive. You can use a
program called On The Wire or Drive Wizard. These programs will attempt to
rebuild the various different aspects of the drive, FAT tables, Directory
Structures, Files Structure etc. In most cases, you can at least get enough of
the drive back to get to that important data, and never risk the original drive.
From:Tim
Danner
·
Make sure you put the drive type back to Auto in
the CMOS. Then listen to hear if the drive is even spinning up. If the drive
isn't spinning up, you can try the old tap technique to try and wake up the
drive. If you are able to wake the drive, have the user backup important files
immediately. Then replace.
·
If the dive is spinning but it still isn't seen
by the POST, then you need to try and locate a drive of the same make and
model. Swapping the controllers on the two drives may allow you to access the
data.
·
If neither of these techniques help, then I
usually tell the user to have a good cry, and then start over. But this time
make sure you backup important files on a regular basis.
From:
Steve Summers
I would
suspect a bad disk controller first. Before I replaced it, though, if I was
lucky enough to get the drive to come up, I would immediately run scan disk and
scan the surface area. If everything checked out, I would replace the drive
controller and see if the problem went away on the same problematic drive.
From:
Chris
The way I
would approach this is to use one of several disk-cloning programs such as
Drive Copy or Norton Ghost. Both of these programs create boot disks that you
can use to "rescue" a failing or error prone hard drive. You boot
with this disk and then select either copying a partition to another partition
(on another drive) or simply clone the entire hard drive. This process is very
fast (depending on the machine) and very reliable. It copies all files and even
preserved FAT setup and partitions when cloning a hard drive.
Another
excellent tool to have in your arsenal is the Norton Boot Disks that will have
the Dos versions of Norton scan disk and disk doctor as well as the Unerase and
Unformat. These tools can restore lost files and correct and identify many more
problems than just Microsoft scandisk even when using the 'scandisk /all'
command.
Also, try
replacing the IDE cable(s) to eliminate the possibility that there is a bad
cable. If the error still happens, then the hard drive has probably failed.
There is a remote chance that using MaxBlast or a similar hard drive utility
from its manufacturer will at least identify and hopefully repair the problem.
Otherwise...remember hindsight is always 20/20. Especially after you lose
data...
From:
Salman Siddiqui
There
would be a couple of points to check before going into recovery mode:
1. Is LBA
mode on or off? Toggling it and setting drive type to auto may help.
2. Was a
Disk Manager type program in use? If it was, refreshing the MBR with the Disk
Manager may do the trick.
If first
has been tried and answer to the second question is no, I would use a low level
disk editor to discover the bounds of the partitions, first and last cylinder.
Remaining data, number of heads, and sectors per track can be worked out
easily.
From:
Thomas Bounds
Of the
many different solutions that could solve this problem, I will start with the
easiest.
·
First, does the drive even power up? (Do you
hear the platters spinning?) If not, check all connections. Otherwise, you have
just acquired another paperweight (since you will have to resort to snail mail
until you can get online again).
·
If you do hear the platters spinning, I would
resort to trying the simple options in BIOS such as LBA mode on or off and HDD
Block mode. Change them to their opposite state and try to reboot now. There
are aftermarket utilities that can detect the logical parameters of a drive
such as DrivePro by Microhouse. This handy (old) tool has gotten me out of many
jams in the 486 HDD world. It will tell you the parameters that the drive was
set up for so that you may manually enter them into the HDD config. section of
BIOS. This is also handy if you happen to be the (not so) proud owner of a
drive with an overlay installed. If that is the case, you will probably want to
use the overlay install disk to repair or replace the overlay.
·
The problem could be related to the HDD
controller. Try replacing it. I could rant for a long time on other solutions,
but I don't have time to get into it that deep.
From:
William Maxwell
Hard drive
failures can result from a number of causes.
·
First line of business is to talk with the
client: Was the machine recently moved? Were any boards recently installed? A
cable may have come loose during one of these operations. Check external
causes, e.g. loose and/or oxidized connectors. Don't discard the possibility of
little rodents–—I've seen flat cable gnawed through by these little critters.
·
Don't forget to check the power cable to the
drive–—no juice, no data.
·
There's always a possibility that the on-board
controller is shot, so to eliminate that factor I would remove the drive,
jumper it to be drive 1 and install it in a known good machine.
·
That done, I turn to a setup program called
EZDrive by Micro House International. With it you can read and configure drive
setup data, backup and restore track 0 or copy an entire partition.
·
Summing up: First of all, be a good listener.
Observe carefully, use good tools and be creative.
I got a call from a client who had been away for three weeks
and had gotten back to find his machine wouldn't boot up. When I listened to
his machine as it was turned on, I noticed that the drive motor wasn't
spinning. Since we live in a very high humidity climate (the Amazon Rain
Forest), I had an idea of what had happened. I politely asked him if he would
get me a glass of water, as it was quite hot that day. As soon as he left the
room I gave his drive a smart rap on the back with my knuckles. The motor
immediately started spinning and by the time he came back with refreshments,
Windows 95 was up and running. I emphasized the need to maintain regular
backups and to purchase a good de-humidifier. I also suggested that next time
he was away, he have his wife run the computer for a couple hours a day. He
never pressed me as to how I got the machine running, and I thought it prudent
not to offer that information.
