Long Bow

Well I went to boot up my computer last night and I got to the boot order and it asked me to insert my OS diskm, which I did. It then proceded to bring me to the installation screen for windows. I tried the recovery option (but know nothing about it). I ran the disk check from the c: prompt and it told me drive had unrecoverable error.

No indications, noises or anything else to indicate a hardrive on it's last legs. I'm going to try a few things with the cables and power to see if anything changes.

Can a hardrive just die in an instant?

Is there a way to recover the data?

Any suggestions?

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Long Bow

Thank you to all 29 viewers who didn't respond, this problem is one I don't want to touch either

Update is that I now have no video output at all, everything sounds likes its running fine, fans, hardrive, video card etc. I do get a video error beep from the mobo as well. I was getting the beep before but didn't know the code for it.

Im going to do some testing and see if the hardrive is faulty or the video card. Can I hook my HD with the OS on it into another computer without causing errors?

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Iamthefallen

Yes.

Maybe?

Yes. Buy a new hard drive. They are so cheap as to practically be considered disposable. Take the old hard drive out, Install the new hard drive in your computer and install windows on it. Now install your old hard drive again, make sure you boot from the new hard drive, you should see the old drive and you may be able to copy files over to the new one.

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Acreo Aeneas

Yes, a hard drive can fail without warning.

Usually there is either indicator(s) or none at all.

This is what usually happens in my experience:

• Weird creaking or clanking noises. Appears randomly at first then progressively becomes worse. Not be confused with the Deskstar HDDs that used to make the "purr" or "whine" sound.
• When you handle the hard drive, it seems like something is loose about the inside (probably broken head).
• You see smoke appear from your hard drive (or you smell it).
• Sparks go flying and you think it's New Year's Day. (only seen this happen in some manufacturer stress tests)

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MagnaCentipede

Don't forget to pull the magnets out of the hard drive (they're awesome for holding refrigerators to your kids' drawings) (yes, that is the correct order of terms) and prepare to slag it if you had anything on there you wouldn't want someone with an electron microscope in their toolshed to see.

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Acreo Aeneas

You can just run the magnets over the very shiny HDD storage platters (the ones that look like super shiny CDs).

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Iamthefallen

After trying several methods of data destruction I've opted for a finely tuned precision crafted cutting edge high tech German-engineered instrument when getting rid of hard drives. Unlike a sledgehammer which mostly dents the outside, the pointy end of a digging bar actually goes right through all the platters.

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MagnaCentipede

I don't see how rubbing it with magnets is going to do much. Magnetic FLUX (electromagnetism, like VHS erasing tools) is what you need to really bend those buggers out of shape.

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ScratchMonkey

I could swear there have been threads just about drive disposal, but searching for "drive disposal" turns up a lot of obviously irrelevant recent threads. Anyone got a good search term that will bring up such threads?

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MagnaCentipede

There's not much to it. You just choose a spot along the spectrum of how much data is left intact on the drive, from "all" through "overwritten eight times with random data" through "melted with thermite", you choose a spot along the spectrum of physical integrity, from "intact" through "dismantled/broken/run-through-grinder" to "melted with thermite" and then you choose an arbitrary location of disposal, like "garbage can," "buried in forest," or "bottom of Mariana's Trench."

Having thus selected the probability of someone stealing your identity you're comfortable with, you're ready to roll.

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kin3

I tried that and I couldn't get the magnet off the frig. Those sucker are really powerfully. Then when I did get it off I scratched the frig and made the wife unhappy. But whatever you put on the frig will stay there for sure.

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The Old Guy
kin3

MagnaCentipede

The zen master knows, you don't remove the magnet from the fridge, you remove the fridge from the magnet. Heating to the curie temperature works, too, but that would be cheating.

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Long Bow

^^ = Tangent

It's not the hardrive, the data is safe. The pci-e slot on the mobo is dead. Case closed. Time for an upgrade. I will post up a new thread for input.

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birdie_in_Texas

i have, in the 15 years i have been building/selling pc's only had 2 drives just "quit"..as in, one minute they are on and fine, the next instant they are "dead"..

have had several start doing crazy shenanigans to where i threw them out, but only 2 that actually went *poof*..

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Long Bow

^^ every time I have a problem that "just appears" I have a hard time believing hardware just died on the spot. Theres usually something else going on or a trick to get things back and working.

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