Is This Disk DEAD?

[Don]

I bought a recertified 160 gigabyte PATA drive a couple of years ago. I
guess recertified means used. Anyway it was working fine until
yesterday afternoon when I decided to reformat it and reinstall Ubuntu
7.04. The operating system seemed to install OK, but when I did the
reboot, poof, the machine wouldn't boot. After I booted into Windows XP
PRO, XP wouldn't even acknowledge the drive's existence in
Administrative Tools-> Computer Management-> Disk Management. I then
tried Paragon Partition Manager. I got "invalid Drive Specified"
message. I click on OK and then I get another message box "Hard disk
2:I/O fault". Partition Manager then shows my disk drives, the problem
drive as an unpartitioned drive. And that's it. I can't do anything to
the disk.

I then booted my machine using FreeBSD 6.2 boot disk. Their version of
FDisk recognized my first two hard drives, but it stumbled on the third
(problem drive). It kept trying and failing to find the drive's
geometry. After about 15 minutes of this I gave up.

So do I commit this disk drive to that great bit bucket in the sky, or
does anyone have any other ideas in trying to resurrect this sucker.

Thanks,
Don

 

[meerkat]

I bought a recertified 160 gigabyte PATA drive a couple of years ago. I
guess recertified means used. Anyway it was working fine until yesterday
afternoon when I decided to reformat it and reinstall Ubuntu 7.04. The
operating system seemed to install OK, but when I did the reboot, poof, the
machine wouldn't boot. After I booted into Windows XP PRO, XP wouldn't
even acknowledge the drive's existence in Administrative Tools-> Computer
Management-> Disk Management. I then tried Paragon Partition Manager. I
got "invalid Drive Specified" message. I click on OK and then I get another
message box "Hard disk 2:I/O fault". Partition Manager then shows my disk
drives, the problem drive as an unpartitioned drive. And that's it. I
can't do anything to the disk.

I then booted my machine using FreeBSD 6.2 boot disk. Their version of
FDisk recognized my first two hard drives, but it stumbled on the third
(problem drive). It kept trying and failing to find the drive's geometry.
After about 15 minutes of this I gave up.

So do I commit this disk drive to that great bit bucket in the sky, or
does anyone have any other ideas in trying to resurrect this sucker.

Run the disk manufacturers test tools on it, and then, if, etc.
dump it.

bw..

 

[DaveW]

Say bye-bye to it.