Razumen

Distinguished
Dec 30, 2005
21
0
18,510
I think my 2 Hard drives failed, but it's weird how it happened, let me explain;

A couple of days ago my computer was acting strange; whatever task/s XP was running would sometimes freeze for a couple of seconds, then resume like normal. Being the dolt I am (without even thinking "just MAYBE I should backup some stuff first), I rebooted the system and now it hangs at a blank screen after POST.

I ran a virus-scan with a Mcafee boot disk, and it says there are no files on either drive. Although I think it said there were master boot records on each...

I did use those drives quite a bit, so perhaps their motors went, although it is strange that they'd both go at the same time. I've backup the most important data on them, but I'd rather not lose the rest.

Is there some way I can figure out (safely) what the problem with the drives are? Or should I just check and see how much data recovery will cost me?

On a side note, I'll probably be setting up a raid array in the future, :roll:
what's the best raid level for data security with 2-4 drives?
 

PCcashCow

Distinguished
Jun 19, 2002
1,091
0
19,280
The two drive are not in a raid right now? From the way you explaine it sounds like they are.

Anyway, have you tried running the recovery consoule from a bootable XP CD?

Simple raid 1 provieds mirroring, raid 5 is better but you need more drives, and raid 10 or 1+0 has better performance marks than raid 5, but you loose more space and need 4+ drives.
 

Razumen

Distinguished
Dec 30, 2005
21
0
18,510
No they're weren't in raid, one was a IDE drive, the other SATA. From what little I know of raid I'm pretty sure it would be impossible for them to be.

I haven't tried the recovery console, don't even know how to use it. I'll look into that.

I'm thinking of installing the drives into another working computer and seeing if XP on there can read them.
 

PCcashCow

Distinguished
Jun 19, 2002
1,091
0
19,280
Good thought, it should be able to look at the ntfs structure but not 100% sure.

He may want to use the disk utilities from the manufacturer too.
 

mdalli

Distinguished
Feb 18, 2006
59
0
18,630
If memory serves, when the hard drive fails, you will get a "non-system disk" error, not a blank screen.

First thing I'd do? Try to borrow another computer, unplug the temporary computer's hard drives, and plug your suspect drives in (one at a time please), and try to boot the system.

I suspect that either: you have a motherboard-level failure (hard drive controller, etc.) or you have some sort of Windows failure.
 

NovemberWind

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2006
25
0
18,530
Another suggestion if another comp isn't easily accessible: get a copy of Knopix (or other OS bootable from CD - Knopix is the only one I'm familiar with) and see if you can scope your HD from there.

You mentioned motors failing - does it sound like they failed? (i.e. no whirring sound) If not, they're probably OK (motors, at least).

The proviso I attach with all of this is that none of this will work if mdalli is right and it's a mobo issue.

Good luck, man.
 

Razumen

Distinguished
Dec 30, 2005
21
0
18,510
Thanks guys, I'll try swapping out the drives from the other computer and see if my drives will boot from there. Going to be awhile before I can though, currently in the middle of a very busy semester (midterms and assignments) :?

I'm not familiar with Linux, but it's never too late to learn.
 

Razumen

Distinguished
Dec 30, 2005
21
0
18,510
Ok, since I figured there'd most likely be problems with XP by swapping HDs between different Motherboards, so I got rid of unnecessary components from my computer and tried each HD at a time. I got it to boot to XP off the Sata HD, and am currently burning a few files off of it before I reconnect the IDE. I do have a few questions I hope you guys may know the answers to.

First of all, when XP booted, it said the disk needed to be checked for consistency. I declined because it has said the same thing before, and when I had let it go through and check the disk, it deleted a whole lot of files. Everything seems to run fine if I decline. A important clue may be that the drive is listed as a 'ST330085 IAS SCSI Disk Drive'.

Also, in the Bios setting for the IDE drive, there is an option for enabling 32Bit File Transfer, does anyone know what this is for? I've been unable to find any info for it anywhere.
 

Mondoman

Splendid
It's never a good idea to boot from a drive that had Win installed on a different MB, since the HAL (hardware-specific drivers, e.g. chipset etc) will be wrong for the "new" MB. The SCSI weirdness may stem from that (Windows using the wrong drivers). I certainly wouldn't trust any data copied under those conditions.
Better to connect the hard drive to the other system, but to boot off the Windows CD and go into recovery console mode. From there, you can copy files from drive to drive, etc, at the command line.
 
My SATA shows up as a scsi drive attached to a third IDE channel, it might just be the way that the controllers are configured. A lot of the new intel based boards are not native ide from what I can tell, they have to use seperate controllers, and this is how they may appear. Its all a bit of a kludge i think.
 

Razumen

Distinguished
Dec 30, 2005
21
0
18,510
It's never a good idea to boot from a drive that had Win installed on a different MB, since the HAL (hardware-specific drivers, e.g. chipset etc) will be wrong for the "new" MB. The SCSI weirdness may stem from that (Windows using the wrong drivers). I certainly wouldn't trust any data copied under those conditions.
Better to connect the hard drive to the other system, but to boot off the Windows CD and go into recovery console mode. From there, you can copy files from drive to drive, etc, at the command line.

Well I didn't swap MBs to check the drives, but in the past (like 6 months ago) I did do a Mobo swap, with an repair installation of XP so it would install the correct drivers.

It's likely that something did not quite transfer over smoothly from that, and that's why XP keeps on insisting on checking the drives (which seems to happen after a drive is disconnected, then reconnected) The SCSI thing may or may not be an problem, because other than the disk checks, the drives have worked fine.

When I tested the drives one at the time on my system, the last drive I tried was the boot drive by itself. The XP boot screen came up then went to the "last time Windows did not properly start up" screen. I then selected the "use the best settings that worked" option and it booted up fine.

From what I can guess something had fudged with the disk drivers in Windows before I shutdown, which explains why it failed to reboot, and the strange 'pausing' I was experiencing beforehand.

Anyways, now I'm just concerned with burning data of the disks to get ready for my new system I'll be building. If I experience similar problems with the HDs at that time, then they may be faulty.

Now if only DVD-RWs were easier to find.
 

Earlina

Distinguished
Nov 21, 2006
1
0
18,510
I think my 2 Hard drives failed, but it's weird how it happened, let me explain;

A couple of days ago my computer was acting strange; whatever task/s XP was running would sometimes freeze for a couple of seconds, then resume like normal. Being the dolt I am (without even thinking "just MAYBE I should backup some stuff first), I rebooted the system and now it hangs at a blank screen after POST.

I ran a virus-scan with a Mcafee boot disk, and it says there are no files on either drive. Although I think it said there were master boot records on each...

I did use those drives quite a bit, so perhaps their motors went, although it is strange that they'd both go at the same time. I've backup the most important data on them, but I'd rather not lose the rest.

Is there some way I can figure out (safely) what the problem with the drives are? Or should I just check and see how much data recovery will cost me?

On a side note, I'll probably be setting up a raid array in the future, :roll:
what's the best raid level for data security with 2-4 drives?

Stellar Phoenix FAT & NTFS a data recovery software has a reputation of pulling out the data from hard drive which are not accessible. Has worked for me quite fine, got back my data from this utility and will ever greatful to this. Just try with demo version first you will get it from http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm
Demo version shows you the recovered data.
If you are able to see your data then get the full version to save.
Hope it will also going to work for you.
 

Doughbuy

Distinguished
Jul 25, 2006
2,079
0
19,780
Man, I shoulda came here earlier... this is the easiest and most painless thing to do. Since it seems your SATA HDD is fine, I believe your IDE HDD (which is your boot HDD is it not?) has been corrupted (Either partition table, etc...)

What I would do at this point is to either stick the IDE in another computer, and run GetDataBack NTFS or FAT (depending on what you have) and you can easily extract all the information off of it. I just did this 2 days ago with a hdd that I had die on me. Works like a charm.

If that doesn't work, drop by your local computer store, buy a 3.5" external HDD, and run GetDataBack off of that, return enclosure when done or keep if you want. An enclosure only runs about 20 bucks anyways, and I got 6 of them.

Hopefully, after you pull the data, you can do a complete reformat and still use the HDD... or it might be dead. But I believe your data should be fine.