Dead system drive? 1

[jomtones3]

Recently had my syste, stop booting, it's a western digital 250GB so I tried running the WD diagnostic CD, but it can't even SEE the drive!!

It IS spotted fine by the BIOS, although everything seems to run very slow (POST etc) when the WD drive is connected. Any ideas on where to go from here?...

Thanks!

Bill.

 

[jomtones3]

Update- Managed to get access to the system drive using Mini WinPE, I'm now copying the contents over to another drive just so I've got a backup- seems to be working OK.

Would this indicate some kind of MBR / boot sector problem?..

Any ideas on fixing it? Tried running a 'fix MBR' app off the Mini WinPE but it couldn't 'see' the drive!

 

[edfair]

If the diagnostics can't see it there is something fundamentally flawed. Get your backup, then make your replacement plans.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[jomtones3]

Hmmm yeah I guess you're right.

Wierd cos I can access all the files fine from Mini WinPE, just DOS can't seem to get it. Tried running FixMBR from the recovery console too but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Wouldn't mind but the damn thing is out of warranty and I'm going to have to wait till I can get a new disk!

 

[Frank4d]

Since you are to the point of replacing the drive I guess it wouldn't hurt to zero fill it (also incorrectly called low level format). Download the manufacturer's zero fill utility and try it.

I have done this a few times when the drive was so corrupted the usual Microsoft provided tools would not work.