HD making strange sounds, XP reboots

  • Thread starter Thread starter MBIEnt
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MBIEnt

How does one check out the 'health' of a HD?

Periodically, while nothing else seems to be running, the HD will whirl
several times (like it's coming up to speed), click (like the access
mechanism is seeking) then snap (like the access mechanism was all the
way in and snapped back to the dock). The HD led is lit and nothing
can happen (keyboard, apps, etc.) while it is lit.

During a CD Burn, this happened and XP restarted. Startup message said
something about recovering from a serious error. Couldn't save the
info, though it did say it was saved in some Temp file and a report was
filed.

Where do I find that report?

And what about the HD?

Thanks
 
Hello, Sounds like you may be experiencing hard drive failure. I would
suggest you go to the hard drive manufacturer's website and download their
diagnostic software. All of the major hard drive manufacturers have this
available. You will need to create a bootable CD using an ISO file.
Instructions for doing this are typically on the manufacturer's website. You
will need a program such as Nero or Roxio to create the CD. BEfore running
the disk, reboot your machine and go into bios and make your CD-Rom drive the
boot drive. Save and restart and slip the CD you created in the drive.
After the diagnostic disk loads run the full surface scan. This could take
some time. If you have bad sectors they will be removed from the drive's
access. Sometimes isolating bad sectors which contain important data can
cause problems, but they will occur anyway because the sector is damaged. If
you have many bad sectors it is time to retire the drive. If you can still
get it to run and want to save what you have you can get a program called
'Ghost' or some equivalent which will recreate all of your files and folders
 
PS Some manufacturers will also allow you to run web based programs that
checks out the drive while still in Windows. Less complicated but perhaps
less accurate.
 
Thank you for your response, have been out of town, so could not reply,
but the problem may be fixed. Here's what happened, and this may be
another arrow you can put in your quiver.

The machine wouldn't boot (black screen with error message), so, since
the machine is still under warrenty, I called the help desk. The tech
talked me through removing the hard drive (it's a laptop). Then he
told me to reinsert it. Lo and behold, everything worked perfectly.
The system booted, the drive didn't make any noises and has been
running smoothly (silently) ever since. While the tech didn't say so,
I suspect what I did was the equivalent to reseating the cableing in a
desktop system, which I see advised, from time to time.

The tech did send me a new drive and a complete disk set to reinstall
XP, but until it crashes, I'm not going to do that. I did backup all
my data files, as well as application source file, so if it crashes,
all I have to recover is XP.

I will get and run the diagnostic tool you recommended.

I don't know anything about programs like Ghost, would that save me the
XP reinstall task? Reinstalling the OS seems like neurosurgery to me.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
 
funny that I would not have thought about reseating the drive... Anyway, what
"ghosting" does is to take EVERYTHING from your old drive and make an exact
duplicate of it on your new one. This may a bit more problematic on a
laptop. You would have to connect the two drives. Your original one as the
master and the new drive as the slave. This might mean moving a jumper on
the new drive as they usually come configured as Masters. The Ghost program
will copy everything including the operating system from the old to the new.
The program is menu driven and pretty simple. I would suggest you do this
NOW in case your old hard drive crashes. Then you simply unplug the old
drive, shift the jumper on the new drive from slave to master, plug it in and
you will be back where you started from without having to reinstall any of
your software or the operating system. My forte is not laptops so I hope
this makes sense to you. Regards, RM
 
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