Hard Disc Drive Failure

[kayo]

Right then. I'm taking the p1ss this month, but I got a new problem. THis time it's not my brothers stuff (I think I/we've mostly resolved his issues) but MY problem. Bugger.

Last night, as per usual, watching a DVD in bed (MP and the holy grail) and my second hand Compaq Evo N600c was running smooth as ice. No probs at all, everything as per normal. I paused the movie and put my laptop in standby when I was dozing off.

This morning I awaken, and my laptop is out of standby, and is saying it doesn't recognize my Operating Disc (or words to that effect)/ White font, black screen. (dos??)

I tried the obvious. Shut it down and rebooted. Starts up with the intial compaq screen. Shows the "press ctrl+S" to enter .... for a few seconds and then it SHOULD boot up.

But it doesn't.

I-ve entered the BIOS screen. But from there i cannot progress.

Sometimes, when I-ve held the machine at a nearly upside down angle, it goes to the Windows boot up screen, but gets stuck there.

It won-t boot.

AND

The only times I've been able to even get as far as the BIOS screen, or the Windows boot up screen, are holding it at a funny angle and the HD is making a FUNNY NOISE whirring (like it was out of place). It-s not the fan, It is the HDD I'm pretty darn sure.

THis morning I took it to a shop that conveniently does both Compaq and Toshiba and they say I need a new HDD, thta it is a mechanical failure. It's worn out!n <deleted>

That's not a big deal, but the problem then is that he says I either need all my original Windows discs etc... Which, well, I'm travelling in India now. I don't have all that with me, and it costs a fortune to get them new (again!).

Is there any guesses as to 1) getting my existing Toshiba HDD2182 F ZE01 T drive to work (god.darnit work I tell ya!) 2) alternatives...

[meadish_sweetball]

When a hard drive is gone, it's gone... If you are lucky you may be able to recover some data from it, but don't expect it to work again, it most likely will not... I have learned my lesson and have become better at backing up important files, although not every week like I probably should. Without backups you risk losing it all...

[cdnvic]

If it's physically damaged it's buggered, but if it just suddenly went bad its often recoverable with a utility like Spinrite. You need to boot from a floppy or bootable CD before you can diagnose anything though.

[nikster]

It's dead! Time for a new beginning. Feng Shui for your hard drive Seriously, I know it sucks, I have lost 3 hard drives so far. The first one was bad as I had no back-ups, but the second and third times I had full backups and was back up and running in a day or two.

You can try to put the HD into an external enclosure ($20) and see if you can access it from there to salvage some data. There are also shops who specialize in recovering data from fried disks.

As for Windows, I am sure there are rupees copies to be had in India just like there are in Thailand - should do until you are back and have your original copies. All programs will be gone too, of course.

[Guest Reimar]

Try HDD Regenerator. You can download a free (Trial) version from here: http://hdd-regenerator.softonic.de/ie/28853 (this is a german website) or from here: http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Utiliti...egenerator.html

I've good expiriences with this software and use it many times in the past and recovered a lot drives with it.

[kayo]

Thanks for your comments gents.

the guy at the store also said it was fried.

I posted the O.P from my bro's pc, but now I'm posting from mine again.

Well, you see, I was sitting on the balcony, meditating upon my dilemma, and thinking, "Right, the disc isn't spinning properly on the HD. What does one do when something is out of place? One attempts to put it back in place!!!"

"Of course!" I thought to myself. "At the very least it is worth a try! I've nothing to lose anyway!"

I had not too long ago backed upeverything (as I usually work from an external HD, my contacts, emails, and documents & music are all stored externally anyway!) so I extracted the HD, pushed down on the enclosure where the disc ought to be, and gently pushed the whole circular disc part back as if putting it back in its socket.

Rebooted, et voila! I'm here!.

I don't expect it last, but it booted without any troublesome noise, and everything is as normal thank god. I'm backing up the last few things as we speak, and at least now I can be mentally prepared for it to die one of these days. Not waking up to an unexpected death of a laptop, which is always a miserable way to awaken.

[JohnC]

Just a thought as Im no expert but win xp pro has a facility to take an image of your hard drive to transfer to your new hard drive or pc I believe which might be worth doing then when you buy new hardrive you install all your programs from your old hard drive without having to worry about cd s. Alternatively there is drive image software available that will do the same job. Just an idea thats all.

[britmaveric]

Might try the HD in the freezer for 20min - didnt work for me, but worked for some people I know. Gave them enough time to copy data.

If you can boot to command prompt - might try fdisk, might recover enough so you can boot up.