HD failing? Boot sector/MBR failure?

[Patrick Demets]

My hard drive is acting up, and I'm not sure what's up with it. Just
recently, at bootup it says BOOT FROM CD: DISK BOOT FAILURE. I can then
boot from my Win2000 CD, get in Windows and access everything as usual. I
noticed that at bootup, it didn't show my hard drive (Fujitsu MPG3409AT), so
I checked the BIOS setup and it didn't auto-detect the drive. So I set it
to auto-detect (which worked), saved, and re-booted. The system booted by
itself. But the next time I booted, it again did not detect a hard drive.
It seems I have to enter the BIOS setup each time and set the auto-detect.
I have checked that all connectors are properly seated. I've attempted to
run the Fujitsu disk diag, but for some reason it's saying that it can't see
a hard drive on the system. I'm tempted to say that the drive is on its
last leg, and that I should seriously think about a replacement.

Another issue I have is how to avoid re-installing all software on the
replacement drive. In other words, can I simply re-install W2K and then
copy all other files, so that when I make this new drive the master
everything is as it was with the old drive?

Your suggestions are much appreciated,

Patrick

 

[someone]

My hard drive is acting up, and I'm not sure what's up with it. Just
recently, at bootup it says BOOT FROM CD: DISK BOOT FAILURE. I can then
boot from my Win2000 CD, get in Windows and access everything as usual. I
noticed that at bootup, it didn't show my hard drive (Fujitsu MPG3409AT), so
I checked the BIOS setup and it didn't auto-detect the drive. So I set it
to auto-detect (which worked), saved, and re-booted. The system booted by
itself. But the next time I booted, it again did not detect a hard drive.
It seems I have to enter the BIOS setup each time and set the auto-detect.
I have checked that all connectors are properly seated. I've attempted to
run the Fujitsu disk diag, but for some reason it's saying that it can't see
a hard drive on the system. I'm tempted to say that the drive is on its
last leg, and that I should seriously think about a replacement.

Another issue I have is how to avoid re-installing all software on the
replacement drive. In other words, can I simply re-install W2K and then
copy all other files, so that when I make this new drive the master
everything is as it was with the old drive?

Your suggestions are much appreciated,

Patrick

Fujitsu MPG's are the subject of a hdd class action lawsuit. Most likely the
control board has a copper migration problem.

If you are trying to recover data from the failing hdd do not spin it up
until you have a DR plan in place. The longer the hdd
runs your odds of successful DR decrease.

Re replacement hdd - install an o/s, your apps, drivers and you're set to
go.

someone

 

[Zvi Netiv]

My hard drive is acting up, and I'm not sure what's up with it. Just
recently, at bootup it says BOOT FROM CD: DISK BOOT FAILURE. I can then
boot from my Win2000 CD, get in Windows and access everything as usual. I
noticed that at bootup, it didn't show my hard drive (Fujitsu MPG3409AT), so
I checked the BIOS setup and it didn't auto-detect the drive. So I set it
to auto-detect (which worked), saved, and re-booted. The system booted by
itself. But the next time I booted, it again did not detect a hard drive.
It seems I have to enter the BIOS setup each time and set the auto-detect.
I have checked that all connectors are properly seated. I've attempted to
run the Fujitsu disk diag, but for some reason it's saying that it can't see
a hard drive on the system. I'm tempted to say that the drive is on its
last leg, and that I should seriously think about a replacement.

Another issue I have is how to avoid re-installing all software on the
replacement drive. In other words, can I simply re-install W2K and then
copy all other files, so that when I make this new drive the master
everything is as it was with the old drive?

Applications need to be set up with the hosting OS up and running. The above
procedure won't yield a working clone of your dying drive.

The way to transfer the entire content and setup of your old drive to a new one
is by cloning the old onto the replacement. If done early enough, before
deterioration of the old drive went too far, then you may even not need to fix
W2K's self boot. Still, depending on your old drive condition, some OS repair
may be required to restore self-boot ability.

The important thing is to not waste time, since you already decided to replace
the drive! Too many unfortunate users found that they could recover just
nothing of their data when they insisted pushing their luck with exhaustive
drive diagnostics and futile data recovery attempts.

Check CloneDisk from www.resq.co.il/resq.php

Regards, Zvi