Hard Drive Failure and Windows XP Recovery Console

[mogwaicat]

My hard drive failed but by using my Gateway XP system disk, I was able to run the XP Recovery Console and format it to 100% completion. How could this be if the hard drive has failed?
What exactly goes on 'behind the scenes' when you format a hard drive? Thanks...

 

[osuman]

What is your source of information that the hard drive has "failed?" It's possible that the file system became corrupt and the message that was generated is that it failed. By reformatting you are recreating the file system, which could make it appear that the HD is fine. The exact message would be necessary to know if it had really failed or not. However, if you were able to format and successfully reinstall windows then it's possible the HD is fine. On the other hand, it could truly have a problem and it won't show up again for a while. To read more about formatting go here:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/format.htm

Good luck.

 

[mogwaicat]

I was not able to re-install XP after the successful format. I had tried (before the format) to run chkdsk first but it failed with disk error messages. I am not sure if the hard drive problem is a file system error or a hardware failure. The way it started was I was not able to close out of a website. Tried to re-boot, but it took maybe 5-10 minutes just to get back to the desktop! Eventually, it would not even get that far on a re-boot.

 

[osuman]

Well, it's starting to sound more like it does in fact have a hardware problem. There are a couple more things you could try before writing it off though. I would repartition the disk and/or do a low level format. Then high-level format and try to run scandisk or install your OS. In other words, I would completely rebuild the file structure. If you still have a lot of errors then it has some bad sectors at important locations or there is some other hardware failure. If it's not under warranty still then I would try these things as you have nothing to lose. If it is under warranty you should definitly talk to the manufacturer. You said that you have XP, which is fairly new, leading me to believe you should check your warranty info. If you need more info on how to do these things let me know.

 

[tlcscousin]

Try booting with a w98 bootdisk and a:\fdisk /mbr to wipe the master boot record in case you managed to get a virus in the master boot record.
Usually if you can format the drive completely it is ok.
Having it act up when trying to close a web page is unusual and then saying it failed is again not usual.I would suspect a virus or corrupted master boot record.That is not to say that the drive cant fail that easily.

 

[Comtech]

When running chkdsk (from DOS), use the /f switch to "fix" any bad sectors. If they're unrecoverable, their addresses are written into the FAT, so that they won't be used. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[Guest_imported]

If you need to test the drive to see if the hardware is ok, then download a drive util from the drive makers website. I know that Dell has one that is avail called HDDCTST.EXE. Just look on support.dell.com for it and I have used it a lot of times. It extracts to make a bootable floppy and runs in about 2 minutes.