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Is my Hard Drive dead?

Last response: in Storage
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My computer will not boot up. When it is starting up, it says "2 active partitions" then it says "no boot available". However, when I go to the BIOS menu, it still gives me the information on the Hard Drive (the model number: "WD SATA" etc.). And it still makes sound as if it is functioning.

I did borrow a HDD from someone else and it worked, which leads me to believe that my Hard Drive is broken.

So I am confused if my hard drive is dead or not. It will not boot up, but the BIOS menu still seems to detect it.

PS: It will not let me do a factory restore on it, it says "cannot restore".

This is a Dell E510.

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you could have gotten a virus that repartion your hard drive. if you can boot from the restore cd or another pc look to system if there a system partion and normal partion on your hard drive, the system partion is the part windows uses for system restores.
some vendors now use a hidden partion or one named backup or restore if you dont have the disk. i say to boot from another disk or cd to see if any of the data still there that you want. if not with any hard drive util disk just do a fdsik/mbr then do a fdisk and remove all the partions. then make one new partion and then reboot and then try the restore cd.

smorizio said:
you could have gotten a virus that repartion your hard drive. if you can boot from the restore cd or another pc look to system if there a system partion and normal partion on your hard drive, the system partion is the part windows uses for system restores.
some vendors now use a hidden partion or one named backup or restore if you dont have the disk. i say to boot from another disk or cd to see if any of the data still there that you want. if not with any hard drive util disk just do a fdsik/mbr then do a fdisk and remove all the partions. then make one new partion and then reboot and then try the restore cd.


I am going to use my Dad's hard drive to boot the computer. From there, do I go to "Manage" and see what is up with the messed up Hard Drive?

What do you mean by "any hard drive util disk just do a fdsik/mbr then do a fdisk and remove all the partions"?

I am out of luck, the Dell e510 recovery CD is lost :(  . In the process of getting a replacement from Dell though.

Backing up data is not an issue, because my brother said he does not need to keep anything.

on every hard drive is a master boot record. to be safe that the virus is not there you should run a fdisk/mbr to delete the one that there. then run fdisk and delete all the partion on the drive then make one new one.

smorizio said:
on every hard drive is a master boot record. to be safe that the virus is not there you should run a fdisk/mbr to delete the one that there. then run fdisk and delete all the partion on the drive then make one new one.

Really not sure what to do... Never used fdisk or mbr.

Well, the Hard Drive is definitely healthy. I know that for sure.

I used another Hard Drive to boot up the E510 and I was able to browse through all the files on the messed up hard drive. When I went to manage, I see that hard drive and all of its partitions.
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