System Boot Disc Failure

[Interesting Ian]

Tonight my computer has switched itself off twice, and each time when it attempted to boot up it has said "boot disc failure". The first time I put my windows XP disc in to try and do a "repair", but it wouldn't because the hard disc isn't working. But then I took the XP disc out and it booted up normally, although taking ages. I put it in safe mode and did a system restore.

However it has just happened again. Prior to going off the hard drive was going continuously for no obvious good reason, and I couldn't do anything. I did a complete virus scan which turned up nothing.

So might this be a software problem which will be solved by a complete format of my hard drive, or is there something wrong with my hard drive?

If anyone has any advice it would be appreciated.

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

If I was to make an educated guess, I'd say that you have hard errors on the drive itself.

You can run a 'Check Disk' on your hard drive using these instructions (http://www.pcdon.com/page82.html). This should be able to tell if there's errors on the hard disk itself. The 'Check Disk' also can flag the bad clusters so they're not used again. So if this was done, you could reformat and you might be ok. Usually it's not a big deal when you get errors on the hard disk itself, except when it's on the boot sector; That's when Windows will have trouble booting.

My suggestion would be to do a backup of any critical data ASAP. Once sectors start going on the hard drive, a complete failure could be imminent (Or it could take years.. You just never know unfortunately). Better to be safe than sorry though.

[Interesting Ian]

If I was to make an educated guess, I'd say that you have hard errors on the drive itself.

You can run a 'Check Disk' on your hard drive using these instructions (http://www.pcdon.com/page82.html). This should be able to tell if there's errors on the hard disk itself. The 'Check Disk' also can flag the bad clusters so they're not used again. So if this was done, you could reformat and you might be ok. Usually it's not a big deal when you get errors on the hard disk itself, except when it's on the boot sector; That's when Windows will have trouble booting.

My suggestion would be to do a backup of any critical data ASAP. Once sectors start going on the hard drive, a complete failure could be imminent (Or it could take years.. You just never know unfortunately). Better to be safe than sorry though.

OK I've just run the check disc. It said it was recovering lost files at the end, but that's it.

What about the fact that my hard drive was continually going with the red light on all the time, and everything frozen up just before it it switched itself off? Does that suggest a software problem or a problem with the hard drive? It's never been as bad as that before so is definitely implicated in the failure.

Anyway my plan is to back up anything important, then do a full format and see if the problem re-occurs. Is that the best plan? Anything else which I might do?

Oh yeah, and I'll do a defrag before all that. I never defrag my hard drive.

[Rat]

Find out what make of drive it is and get the disk-checking utility from their site. All of the major four manufacturers have a free utility that does a thorough check of the disk and will find any hard errors. A couple of them even give you an RMA code for if you need to send it back (though it's not likely to be in warranty now that warranties only run for a year.)

Cheers,
Rat.

[Underemployed]

What they said. It sounds like something major is failing, most likely the hard drive, so back up everything while you still can (NOT to another folder on the hard drive!) and prepare to spend yet more money on computer parts.

If you're getting a new hard drive, I recommend one like this. (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=202601)

[teddygrahams]

DO NOT DEFRAG a supspected hard drive failure - you're only risking corrupting data by re-writing it. Get a USB flash drive and backup the most important files first.

[Soapy Sam]

Ian- priority. If you have any important data on that drive not externally backed up, try to back it up immediately. It sounds like the disc has a problem. If not, you have lost nothing. If so, you have saved your work / photos / whatever.

[Interesting Ian]

What they said. It sounds like something major is failing, most likely the hard drive, so back up everything while you still can (NOT to another folder on the hard drive!) and prepare to spend yet more money on computer parts.

If you're getting a new hard drive, I recommend one like this. (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=202601)

It's completely gone. I haven't been able to switch my computer on since Christmas Eve. I'm back on an old hard drive I had previous to my current computer. A 13 Gb one. Just finished putting xp on and everything.

I'm going to have to buy a new hard drive.

Now, I'm planning to buy a new computer in about a years time, so I want a new hard drive to be compatible with my present computer (the computer I have now is almost 4 years old with an XP1800 processer, an asus A7V333 Mobo, a Ti4200 graphics card and 500Mb of ram), but also I'd like to use my new hard drive wiith a new computer if possible but without compromising its speed.

Any suggestions?

[Interesting Ian]

Ian- priority. If you have any important data on that drive not externally backed up, try to back it up immediately. It sounds like the disc has a problem. If not, you have lost nothing. If so, you have saved your work / photos / whatever.

I've lost almost everything on my hard drive, but a friend says it might be retrievable. I haven't lost all that much because I often back up to RAM discs anyway.

[Interesting Ian]

My hard drive which has ceased to work was 60Gb. I'd like to get a bigger one than that because I never had any space. Ideally at least 100Gb.

[Rat]

There's always a friend who says it's retrievable. If it's a mechanical failure (likely from the way it failed), then nothing is retrievable without a lot of money spent. You could try replacing the IDE if you're desparate for something on the drive, but it's a long shot.

Your new drive doesn't have to slow your later new machine. You can just use a small sata drive as your boot drive later, to hold Windows and all your applications, and use the new (but by then older) drive as a data drive to hold everything else. That's (more or less) what I do. And your "at least 100GiB" is pretty much minimum spec for a hard drive now. I think 80 is probably the smallest you can buy new. 200 is probably best value per gigabyte, as 400GiB and the new 500GiB drives are still quite pricey, which is a shame, because it means I have to use 4 drives to reach a terabyte in my machine. And it's still full.

Cheers,
Rat.

[scribble]

I've lost almost everything on my hard drive, but a friend says it might be retrievable. I haven't lost all that much because I often back up to RAM discs anyway.


hahahah

That's supposed to be funny, right? You're quite the comedian.

[Interesting Ian]

hahahah

That's supposed to be funny, right? You're quite the comedian.

Eh?

[Interesting Ian]

There's always a friend who says it's retrievable. If it's a mechanical failure (likely from the way it failed), then nothing is retrievable without a lot of money spent. You could try replacing the IDE if you're desparate for something on the drive, but it's a long shot.

Your new drive doesn't have to slow your later new machine. You can just use a small sata drive as your boot drive later, to hold Windows and all your applications, and use the new (but by then older) drive as a data drive to hold everything else.



Hmmmm . .could be an idea.





That's (more or less) what I do. And your "at least 100GiB" is pretty much minimum spec for a hard drive now. I think 80 is probably the smallest you can buy new. 200 is probably best value per gigabyte, as 400GiB and the new 500GiB drives are still quite pricey, which is a shame, because it means I have to use 4 drives to reach a terabyte in my machine. And it's still full.



I'm thinking about buying this.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/851706?microsite_id=Component_Shop


Samsung SP2514N Internal Hard Drive
250Gb Formatted Capacity
Internal ATA-7 Interface
7200rpm Spindle Speed
8Mb Buffer Cache
8.9ms Average Seek Time (read)
Dual Digital Signal Processor
Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor
NoiseGuard & SilentSeek technology
3-Year Manufacturing warranty
It only costs £65 and that's including the postage and packing. But is it ok . .ish?

[Rat]

It's about right for the price, and comes with three-year warranty, which is good these days, though was standard a couple of years ago. The only thing I'd wonder about is the make. In my world, hard drives are made by IBM/Hitachi, WD, Maxtor, and Seagate. And Fujitsu, but they don't count. Samsung may well be very good, but I'm not at all familiar with their drives, which would make me wary.

Cheers,
Rat.

[Evolver]

There's always a friend who says it's retrievable. If it's a mechanical failure (likely from the way it failed), then nothing is retrievable without a lot of money spent. You could try replacing the IDE if you're desparate for something on the drive, but it's a long shot.

Your new drive doesn't have to slow your later new machine. You can just use a small sata drive as your boot drive later, to hold Windows and all your applications, and use the new (but by then older) drive as a data drive to hold everything else. That's (more or less) what I do. And your "at least 100GiB" is pretty much minimum spec for a hard drive now. I think 80 is probably the smallest you can buy new. 200 is probably best value per gigabyte, as 400GiB and the new 500GiB drives are still quite pricey, which is a shame, because it means I have to use 4 drives to reach a terabyte in my machine. And it's still full.

Cheers,
Rat.

Actually, if you install the drive as a slave, some data may be retrievable. Often, a bad drive cannot withstand the pressure of being the primary (system) drive, but when used as a slave, it can last long enough to copy files from it.

Before trying this, you must set the paging file to your C: drive. This way, Windows will not attempt to use the bad disc for additional swap space.

Good luck.

[Interesting Ian]

Actually, if you install the drive as a slave, some data may be retrievable. Often, a bad drive cannot withstand the pressure of being the primary (system) drive, but when used as a slave, it can last long enough to copy files from it.

Before trying this, you must set the paging file to your C: drive. This way, Windows will not attempt to use the bad disc for additional swap space.

Good luck.

Yeah I need to now! I've just realized I've lost this registration code for this software which means I can no longer use the software without paying again! (since entering the code allows one to use all the features)

Oh no! *****!

Need my friend to help. I know nothing about this sort of thing.

[scribble]

I haven't lost all that much because I often back up to RAM discs anyway.

....

Eh?

Maybe you are using incorrect terminology, being a less-than-power-user, but RAM disks, by definition, are stored in RAM. So every time you reboot, they get wiped clean. It would be a ridiculous place to back up files. I seriously thought you were making a joke. It was pretty funny.

[Interesting Ian]

Maybe you are using incorrect terminology, being a less-than-power-user, but RAM disks, by definition, are stored in RAM. So every time you reboot, they get wiped clean. It would be a ridiculous place to back up files. I seriously thought you were making a joke. It was pretty funny.

These are DVD-RAM discs I'm talking about. They certainly don't get wiped clean when you reboot!

[Soapy Sam]

Did you perchance save that installation code on one of theose DVD-RAMs?

Scribble's right- a " RAM drive" was just a way of using system memory to act like a hard drive. It would be a pretty funny joke. We can all file it for future use and pretend we made it up.

Ian - have you considered an external USB drive? These are now available in sizes of several hundred Gig. No installation problems, you just plug it into a USB port. (Though it may need a separate power transformer). The smaller and more portable, the more expensive. If you don't need portability, it's cheaper but equally flexible to buy an internal hard drive , in an external case which has the necessary connections. So it is in effect a rather less sleek external.
For the former, check out PC World to see what's available, then buy online. I have two from Freecom (actually Hitachi drives) which have proved reliable. For a boxed internal drive, go to a small local computer shop.
I know you had problems with online purchases before. While buying from a store is dearer, at least you can go and argue if it doen't work. Depends on your cashflow.

[Interesting Ian]

Did you perchance save that installation code on one of theose DVD-RAMs?


I thought I had. It's not there though.



Scribble's right- a " RAM drive" was just a way of using system memory to act like a hard drive. It would be a pretty funny joke. We can all file it for future use and pretend we made it up.



A ram disc I said, meaning a DVD-RAM disc. It acts like a hard drive not like ram memory which you lose when switching off. In fact they 're effectively mini "hard drives".



Ian - have you considered an external USB drive? These are now available in sizes of several hundred Gig. No installation problems, you just plug it into a USB port. (Though it may need a separate power transformer). The smaller and more portable, the more expensive. If you don't need portability, it's cheaper but equally flexible to buy an internal hard drive , in an external case which has the necessary connections. So it is in effect a rather less sleek external.
For the former, check out PC World to see what's available, then buy online. I have two from Freecom (actually Hitachi drives) which have proved reliable. For a boxed internal drive, go to a small local computer shop.
I know you had problems with online purchases before. While buying from a store is dearer, at least you can go and argue if it doen't work. Depends on your cashflow.

I was going to buy this samsung one from PC world last night. But they had run out. They hadn't a couple of hours earlier! This always happens to me.

What about Hitachi? Just reading Tom's guide to hard drives. Apparently there has been no significant performance increases in the last 2 years. Damn! I hate the fact that hard drives are so incredibly slow.

Anyway, I prefer to buy online if I'm going to make a saving of 20-25%

[Interesting Ian]

Tom's hardware guide states:


If two versions of the same drive are available, and differ only in the amounts of onboard cache they have, pick the model with the larger one, as long as the price difference isn't too great. As a rule, this means picking a drive with either an 8 or 16 MB cache.


Hmmm . .the one I was going to buy only had 8MB cache. What does this cache do?

[Interesting Ian]

Tom's hardware guide states:


If two versions of the same drive are available, and differ only in the amounts of onboard cache they have, pick the model with the larger one, as long as the price difference isn't too great. As a rule, this means picking a drive with either an 8 or 16 MB cache.


Hmmm . .the one I was going to buy only had 8MB cache. What does this cache do?

[Interesting Ian]

Tom's hardware guide states:


If two versions of the same drive are available, and differ only in the amounts of onboard cache they have, pick the model with the larger one, as long as the price difference isn't too great. As a rule, this means picking a drive with either an 8 or 16 MB cache.


Hmmm . .the one I was going to buy only had 8MB cache. What does this cache do?

[Interesting Ian]

Tom's hardware guide states:


If two versions of the same drive are available, and differ only in the amounts of onboard cache they have, pick the model with the larger one, as long as the price difference isn't too great. As a rule, this means picking a drive with either an 8 or 16 MB cache.


Hmmm . .the one I was going to buy only had 8MB cache. What does this cache do?

[Checkmite]

My hard drive which has ceased to work was 60Gb. I'd like to get a bigger one than that because I never had any space. Ideally at least 100Gb.

Jesus-on-a-dashboard, what on earth do you people put on your computers? I've been working for almost the last 5 years with this little 20GB drive, and I've never gotten a low space light, ever.

[teddygrahams]

The cache allows the hard disk to read that amount of data while the slow computer reads it. 2MB used to be the standard, no reason for a regular user to need 16MB. Without it, the read head would have to wait more times for the data to spin under it.

[RayG]

Jesus-on-a-dashboard, what on earth do you people put on your computers? I've been working for almost the last 5 years with this little 20GB drive, and I've never gotten a low space light, ever.

No kids huh? :D

Games, images, and music all eat up hard drive space faster than Jughead on a burger.

My own system has tons of room cause I seldom allow any games on it. The kids just got a new system for Christmas though, hard drive space jumped from 40gigs to 200. I don't expect to hear any complaints for awhile. heh heh.

RayG

[Zep]

I'll take any and all left-over 20GB drives that people want to trash. They are EXTREMELY useful!

Ian, you might also just run a quick check on any "current" or "new" HDs you are using for spyware, adware, and malware. Some of these do actually cause the HD to run overtime continuously, right from boot time. They also suck the very life out of your internet connection. Their nasty effect is very much like your HD is dying...

Try LavaSoft (http://www.lavasoft.com/) for a free "fix-up" download for a start - and I'm sure the rest of the geeks here can point you to similar products...and problems! ;)

If you DO get a giant HD, I would very strongly suggest you partition off at least 4GB or so somewhere down the end of it as a "Rescue" partition. In there, install a second copy of the OS of your choosing (probably XP in your case), and a copy of any and all rescue tools and software you might acquire and use. Then, if your main OS partition goes pear-shaped, you should be able to boot the alternate OS, and have at least a fighting chance of fixing stuff (or even just backing up the good bits) without sacrificing it all.

[Rasmus]

For all it's worth, I just used Knoppix (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) to backup and restore my HD.

That worked despite me having no clue about Linux, despite the involvement of a brand new, unpartitioned USB harddisk and despite several errors detected by scandisk.

(My not paying attention and the computer booting over USB HD was the reason why I had reinstall, since I accidentially deleted my main HD isntead of the trial backup, but that's really not all that important ....)

In short: Get hold of that CD or DVD as long as your computer is running fine, you may need it later. (And it works far better than regular backups, if only because nobody ever backs up regualry.)

Rasmus.

[Interesting Ian]

I'll take any and all left-over 20GB drives that people want to trash. They are EXTREMELY useful!

Ian, you might also just run a quick check on any "current" or "new" HDs you are using for spyware, adware, and malware. Some of these do actually cause the HD to run overtime continuously, right from boot time. They also suck the very life out of your internet connection. Their nasty effect is very much like your HD is dying...

Try LavaSoft (http://www.lavasoft.com/) for a free "fix-up" download for a start - and I'm sure the rest of the geeks here can point you to similar products...and problems! ;)



No it is physically damaged, it's not a software problem. It said no hard drive in the BIOS. And you could hear the hard drive clicking when it was trying to do something, shortly before it went.





If you DO get a giant HD, I would very strongly suggest you partition off at least 4GB or so somewhere down the end of it as a "Rescue" partition. In there, install a second copy of the OS of your choosing (probably XP in your case), and a copy of any and all rescue tools and software you might acquire and use. Then, if your main OS partition goes pear-shaped, you should be able to boot the alternate OS, and have at least a fighting chance of fixing stuff (or even just backing up the good bits) without sacrificing it all.

I did have 2 partitions although of 30Gb each. I always do that so I can check whether it's a software problem by booting up into the other partition. But as I said neither partition is accessible, not even in safe mode, because my pc "doesn't think" there is a hard drive installed at all.

[Interesting Ian]

Hmmmm . .could be an idea.



I'm thinking about buying this.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/851706?microsite_id=Component_Shop

Samsung SP2514N Internal Hard Drive
250Gb Formatted Capacity
Internal ATA-7 Interface
7200rpm Spindle Speed
8Mb Buffer Cache
8.9ms Average Seek Time (read)
Dual Digital Signal Processor
Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor
NoiseGuard & SilentSeek technology
3-Year Manufacturing warrantyIt only costs £65 and that's including the postage and packing. But is it ok . .ish?

It had sold out by the time I'd done the research to find out whether it was ok. Now it's back in stock, but they've increased the price from £65 to £80!!

[Interesting Ian]

What about the Hitachi HDT722525DLAT80 of the Deskstar T7K250 type??

Does anyone know if that is a decent hard drive?

[Soapy Sam]

Don't know about the specific model, but you often find branded drives actually are from a major manufacturer with a different name on the case.
Like I said above, the two Freecom USB2 drives I have are both actually Hitachis. No problems with either, one of them after 18 months, the other about 8.
One aspect to ask about is access time. Not important to me, but if you use the drive for gaming, you want fast. Fast tends to mean high spin speeds, which means wear on bearings. Swings and roundabouts.

[balrog666]

Try Spinrite from GRC.com if you need to attempt a recovery.

[Pennywise]

Unless you're using multiple hard drives, the only spec on a hard drive that you should even worry about is size (gigs). The other stuff won't make the kind of difference you would expect.

Hard drive failure is very common now, especially if you are using XP. You should work under the assumption that every hard drive you use will eventually fail, because unless you replace them every 2 years...they will.

The good side, however, is that hard drives are cheap now and should be bought according to the best deal you can get. (Unless you are using multiple drives on one computer or doing something very high end.)