Dead hard disk????

[Saemin]

oy... how do u know if your harddrive is dead? -.-;;
i think mine did....
i was using my computer last night, and suddenly, nothing off the hard drive would either open or run... just the stuff from memory would run...
so i decided to shut it down, and it won't do that either, then it decides to just restart itself... and it never did... -_-;;
when i boot, i get passed all the bios stuffz, then when it's time to boot up windows, i get a blank screen, and reboots itself.... i can hear the disk spinning, but i don't think it's able to read/write...
so.. is it dead?? it's not fixable, rite? it's not even a year old... quantum.. 20gig...
btw, when i first start my computer, the hard drive light won't even turn on.......
oy....

[ngnr]

It sounds like it's dead to me and I doubt you can fix it if you can't get a boot from it, especially since you don't get any activity light. You could try booting from a floppy to see if you can actully see anything on the drive but I wouldn't be too hopeful. Sorry, especially since I have a 20G Quantum fireball myself...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ngnr on 2001-12-17 18:33:45 ]</font>

[Saemin]

yeah, i shud try botting off of a boot disk... but don't have one on me right now... >_<
but the thing is... i've read somewhere that if your drive's dead, it should make wierd, loud noises? is this true? maybe in some cases...
but my drive sounds.. normal... and it's detected under my bios.....
any chance that it's still ... running??? T_T or can get it to run???

[ngnr]

I guess I'd have to ask - how much is it worth to you? There are places that can repair or recover data from dead drives but unless you have something REALLY important, you may be better off buying a new one. I know these things are getting pretty cheap - I can get 20G here in a small city with only a few PC shops for less than $140 Canadian. You can do better than that on-line I'd say. But, I'm no expert so you can always take it to a repair shop to see if it can be fixed.

[Saemin]

well... they're not That important... ^^;;
but still... i have lots of music videos on'em... don't wanna lose'em all.. T_T

UPDate: i booted up with a startup disk... seems like oen of my partitions is still alive!! ^_^
i have two partitions on it... the main seems to be the one causing the problems...
when i try to list the stuff in drive C:, i get this error: "file allocation table bad"
are there any ways of fixing this??
i can see the other stuff on drive D: with no problem... HELps~!!!!
i REALLY Appreciate it!!!! ^.^

[alucard2050]

i would back up everything i possibly could. then do a low level format on the drive. wipe it completly clean then give it a try. from what i understand, low level formats can fix alot of problems with drives. for instance not to long ago my drive was going out and i tried everything to fix it. i downloaded about 10 programs to try and fix it, even did a normal format. but none worked. the low level format fixed it. you'll need the drive manufacturer, model # and maybe some other info (i forget). go to the site and read up on it. it may work. BUT BACK UP EVRTHING YOU CAN FIRST........

[bbb]

I encountered a similar non-bootable dying and then dead hard drive. It was a Quantum too. Only 10.3 gigs though.

I read up on some deja articles stating that Quantum made some models of hard drives with defective dying controller cards (the green circuit board on the bottom of the hard drive).

After discovering that Quantum was no longer making hard drives (department sold to Maxtor) and no one was offering support for Quantum hard drives, I decided to find a spare controller card.

First, I found internet resources showing compatible models of my Quantum drive. Next, I shopped around Ebay for the same model (I e-mailed Quantum hard drive ebayers and asked them to tell me the model number of their drives). I eventually bought a supposedly new 13 gig Quantum for $55 and carefully extracted the controller card off and put it in my dead drive.

On boot up, I was filled with anticipation. And then tears came to my eyes as my hard drive sprang back to life showing all my files on the Windows 98SE desktop. After backing up my drive with Ghost, I fdisked (to merge partitions) and formated the hard drive and re-installed the original controller card (for experimentation). When I rebooted, I was filled with renewed joy as that the hard drive was still beating even with it's original controller.

I'm still happy. Hopefully, you can find similar happiness.

[lsc]

Based on the sign and symtom you have indicated, your hardisk is not dead, just confused as the FATs are not giving consisten disk information. Try booting up using the rescue disk created using windows, scan your harddisk using scandisk from the rescue disk, let it run to correct the problem, then reboot your pc via harddisk. This should make your pc (harddisk) up and jumping again.

[bbb]

Before trying drastic measures, first, try to safeboot. Push F8 during boot up.

If that doesn't work, boot from the Windows Install CD and reinstall Windows over your old Windows.

It it still doesn't work, try some hard drive fixing programs. I think Spinrite is one. Perhaps Norton's Utilities has something for fixing hard drives (I vaguely recall the Mac version had an app that fixed my corrupt Mac hd many eons ago).

And if that doesn't do sqat, then you can perform controller card surgury.