I have a hard drive that fails to boot. On startup it says "disc read error". Even when I connect it to another slave drive on a functional pc it doesnt even read it as an active drive. It does power up and "spin" but thats all it seems to do. The techs I've talked to say it is "physically damaged" and needs to be repaired manually. Is there any thing else I can try before succombing to the immense cost of sending it off. All I really want is some pics of my kids.
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Hard Drive Crash
- Thread starter didaskal
- Start date
ski
Technical User
- Oct 11, 2000
- 2,467
See if either of these can recover your pics:
(free trial version)
(free trial version)
- Thread starter
- #3
I would try checking the BIOS settings to make sure you have that configured correctly, and also the jumper settings, if it is a PATA hard drive (IDE 100 OR 133).
If using PATA/IDE 100 or 133:
The drive connected on the end of a cable should have jumper setting set to master, and the one in the middle should be set to slave. Some also allow for "Single" as a separate option if only one drive on one cable.
Make sure the drive you are having problems with is set as the slave, and the good drive set as the master. If that doesn't work, try a different connection on your motherboard or a different cable.
Another option (since it is making some sound) is to get a cheap USB adapter or case ($15 to $30), and try to connect that way.
Then, once you've rescued what you want (if possible), trash the drive if no good, or if you can use Dariks boot and nuke or another formatting program, I'd do that - just in case you have any possible useful data there (passwords, account numbers, etc). That is only if you can get it to work, of course.
If using PATA/IDE 100 or 133:
The drive connected on the end of a cable should have jumper setting set to master, and the one in the middle should be set to slave. Some also allow for "Single" as a separate option if only one drive on one cable.
Make sure the drive you are having problems with is set as the slave, and the good drive set as the master. If that doesn't work, try a different connection on your motherboard or a different cable.
Another option (since it is making some sound) is to get a cheap USB adapter or case ($15 to $30), and try to connect that way.
Then, once you've rescued what you want (if possible), trash the drive if no good, or if you can use Dariks boot and nuke or another formatting program, I'd do that - just in case you have any possible useful data there (passwords, account numbers, etc). That is only if you can get it to work, of course.
- Thread starter
- #5
thank you for all the help, i had no luck getting it to come up on my working pc. so i have sent it off to a family member at *Phoenix Computer Services LLC* (chris@phoenix-now.com) who does this for a living. he has tools that may be able to reboot the drive under a linux program which will not reformat the drive. i'll let you all know how it goes. thanks again!! (i may call on you all again soon!!)
didaskal,
Sounds like you've got it covered.
As far as what your family member is doing, my guess is he is using Gnoppix, or another free distro that will boot directly into a Linux OS from CD. I did that on a laptop of mine that had some serious problems before. It works great, and is much easier than you would think to run!
Sounds like you've got it covered.
As far as what your family member is doing, my guess is he is using Gnoppix, or another free distro that will boot directly into a Linux OS from CD. I did that on a laptop of mine that had some serious problems before. It works great, and is much easier than you would think to run!
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