Is my harddrive dead??

[Marcel Beaudoin]

When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my data on
another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new hardrive,
installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by updating all of
my drivers)

 

[Rod Speed]

When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows
will start loading (or at least the Windows Loading screen
shows up) and then I hear a loud grinding noise.

Thats probably the drive recalibrating.

I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts up again in
the DOS "Your computer did not shut down properly...bhlahblahblah".

It isnt actually DOS.

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one,
and my data on another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying
a new hardrive, installing windows and then I am good to go?
(followed by updating all of my drivers)

Likely, but it isnt guaranteed.

 

[Arno Wagner]

When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my data on
another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new hardrive,
installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by updating all of
my drivers)

Post the SMART data here. Wothout it it is basically impossible to
diagnise the drive. And typically it is not that simple.

Arno

 

[shkvorets]

It's difficult to understand what kind of noise it makes. Is it
something similar to these: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php
?
Anyways, if the drive starts making some new sounds it's a good sign
to backup ASAP and toss it away.

 

[Marcel Beaudoin]

in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage, Marcel Beaudoin

When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start
loading (or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I
hear a loud grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts
down and starts up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my
data on another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new
hardrive, installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by
updating all of my drivers)

Update time

I spent some of the weekend, poking around inside my computer.

I took the sides off, and started it up, trying to figure out which of my
HDs the noise is coming from. Turns out it is not coming from my HDs, the
clicking/grinding is coming from one of my DVD players. When I put my hand
on it, I can feel it vibrating.

However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't start
up. I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive and set the
drive to be the start-up device, and there was no happiness. No real
difference in what happened.

 

[Rod Speed]

Update time

I spent some of the weekend, poking around inside my computer.

I took the sides off, and started it up, trying to figure out which
of my HDs the noise is coming from. Turns out it is not coming
from my HDs, the clicking/grinding is coming from one of my
DVD players. When I put my hand on it, I can feel it vibrating.

However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't start up.

Try unplugging that DVD drive that is making that noise. You can get
a situation where a defective DVD drive takes so long to respond to
the bios poll for drives that that stops the system booting properly.

I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive

Do you really mean the drive thats making the noise ?

and set the drive to be the start-up device, and there was no happiness.

Not surprising if its the drive thats making the noise, it presumably cant read the Win installation disk.

No real difference in what happened.

Try just unplugging the DVD drive and see if the system will boot off the hard drive.

It if will, replace the DVD drive.

 

[Marcel Beaudoin]

Do you really mean the drive thats making the noise ?

Nope. Different drive. Sorry for not making that clear. (It was all so
clear in my brain...)

Try just unplugging the DVD drive and see if the system will boot off
the hard drive.

It if will, replace the DVD drive.

Will try that.

Thanks!

 

[Marcel Beaudoin]

in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:

Try just unplugging the DVD drive and see if the system will boot off
the hard drive.

It if will, replace the DVD drive.

Nope. I completely unplugged both drives, and it didn't work.

 

[Marcel Beaudoin]

update:

It turns out to be not as simple as I originally thought, but I am
getting a lot closer to tracking down what is going on.

I have two harddrives, a 40 GB HD and a 120 GB HD. Fir whatever reason,
my Windows installation is on my 120 GB HD, and not on my 40 GB HD like I
previously thought. (BOO me!!)

If I set it to start with only the 120 GB HD connected, I get the
following at startup:

Pri Master:WDC W1200JB-00EVA0 15.05R15
Ultra DMA Mode-5, S.M.A.R.T. Capable and Status BAD

And then info on my optical drives.

A bit farther down, it says:
Pri Master Hard Disk :S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, backup and replace
Press F1 to Continue

If I carry on, it loads the Windows installation program (Extremely
slow), and I am given the choice to install/repair/quit. Choosing install
ends up with the software finding a previous version of windows on my HD
(the one that was running before) and it now giving me the option to
repair it. I select yes, and it is now in the process of
installing/repairing my version of windows.

I will give an update of what happens after it is done installing, and I
re-connect back up my older 40 GB HD.

In any case, I think that it is time for me to replace my 120GB HD, which
is weird, as it is only 5 years old. My 40 GB HD is about twice that.

 

[Marcel Beaudoin]

in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:

Update

I will give an update of what happens after it is done installing, and
I re-connect back up my older 40 GB HD.

There is definitely a problem with the HD. It never actually finishes the
installation, and regularly crashes during the process.

So I will remove it from the boot-up list and find someplace that can,
when I purchase a new HD, transfer the data to it.

Any recommendations??

Also, what I wouldn't mind doing is set up my new HD to be able to boot
into Windows, and another partition to boot into a flavour of Linux.

Any recommendations for that??

Thanks for all the help folks!!

 

[Rod Speed]

There is definitely a problem with the HD. It never actually finishes
the installation, and regularly crashes during the process.

Yeah, clearly the BAD SMART status is accurate.

So I will remove it from the boot-up list and find someplace
that can, when I purchase a new HD, transfer the data to it.

Any recommendations??

I like Samsungs myself.

Also, what I wouldn't mind doing is set up my new HD to be able to
boot into Windows, and another partition to boot into a flavour of Linux.

Any recommendations for that??

Most Linux distros come with what you need to do that.

 

[shawn]

Yeah, clearly the BAD SMART status is accurate.



I like Samsungs myself.

I do too.. Unfortunately my last one started to die on me with Smart
warnings about an imminent crash due to unrecoverable errors. It's the
only drive I've had in my own computers over the years that's died on
me. Every other one has been replaced before it's died. I still like
them since it was the quietest and coolest running drive I've used
while still being quite fast.

I probably would have replaced it with another Samsung but I needed a
working drive before I could mail order a replacement so I bought a WD
at a local Best Buy

 

[Squeeze]

shawn wrote in news:[email protected]

I do too.. Unfortunately my last one started to die on me with Smart
warnings about an imminent crash due to unrecoverable errors. It's the
only drive I've had in my own computers over the years

that's died on me.

Did it or did you bury it alive?

 

[Arno Wagner]

That's right but sometimes hard drives can be very sensitive once i
took it out of the CPU the next thing I know, it wouldn't function
anymore.

It has gotten a lot better in the last few years. Basically
to kill adrive with mechanical shock, you have to really mistreat
it. till, dropping it 5cm onto a hard surface can do it.
Elactrostatic discharge damage (EDS) is still a real risk,
the electronics canonly take so much. So if you are waring
wool over silk while handling a drive, don't be surprised
if it is dead afterwards...

Arno

 

[shawn]

shawn wrote in news:[email protected]


Did it or did you bury it alive?

Well it didn't die, but I'm not using it anymore. Luckily the sectors
that were bad were localized to a single partition on the drive (I've
always tended to have multiple partitions on any drive greater than
80GB) so I didn't lose anything.

I suppose it would still work now but I'm hesitant to use it.
Especially after I used some HD test programs (including one from
Samsung) and they all came back with the same message that the drive
is due to fail soon.

 

[Squeeze]

shawn wrote in news:[email protected]

Well it didn't die, but I'm not using it anymore.

Right. so you buried it alive.

Luckily the sectors that were bad were localized to a single partition
on the drive (I've always tended to have multiple partitions on any
drive greater than 80GB)

so I didn't lose anything.

There is no such so about it. Unless you have multiple copies of your
data you can lose any data, whether it's on multiple partitions or not.

I suppose it would still work now but I'm hesitant to use it.

So check the conditions under which it's working (power, temperature
and mounting) and then run it through all its paces by a good harddrive
exerciser like Bart's Disktool. Record the SMART attributes before
and after and if the numbers haven't deteriorated any further it should
be good to go.

Especially after I used some HD test programs (including one from
Samsung) and they all came back with the same message that the drive
is due to fail soon.

Did these test programs also clear the bad sectors and did you
run the diagnostics again after the bad sectors were cleared.
Lots of diags only run nondestructive tests so bad sectors stay
and the diag keeps running into them with the same negative result.