Hard disc dead?

[david_t]

Hi all,

I know we have alot of I.T. guys here, our main P.C. at home will not boot up, error message " Boot disc failure" would this indicate H.D has given up the ghost? what else, if anything could it be.

Also, if it is, can we retrieve whats on it , or is it a lost cause? I know your probably gonna say you should back everything up, but :rolleyes: we have some pics of Le Mans,which we had only just installed and my son has gone away with the T.A. and I don't know if he still has them with his digi camera. My 35 mm pics,I took,were blurred and quite frankly useless, can anyone help?

[mattpayne]

sounds like something isnt right!!!

when you boot the PC listen to the hard drive... if you hear a rapid succession of similar ticks than the HD is probably fooked... check the BIOS to make sure that the drive is showing on there, and maybe try the drive in another PC...

if the drive is buggered £1,200 spent at Vogon or someone similar MAY get some of your data back!

[ScoobyDoo]

Please try another IDE lead before giving up, you never know!

[brucy]

if u wanna try and save some of the data. Stick it as a slave hdd on another computer and see if you can open it through windows and copy and paste the stuff you want across, i hope that makes sense.

I recently lost 12gb of stuff when my hdd ****ed up :( :( :cry:

Andy

[mattpayne]

another thought... what brand id the drive??? you should be able to get a diagnostic boot floppy from thier website to check for controller and S.M.A.R.T errors... booting from a floppy should also show that the bios isnt at fault

[david_t]

Yeah, There is a clicking noise coming from it , and have tried it in my lads system with the same result.

Don't have anything too important to lose, and have most things, Mp3 etc backed up on his system, I guess 1200 squid would be cheap to you professionals, but I will make sure about backing the most important things up in future.

Told the missus I'll have to go back again next year, and re-do my lost photos :rolleyes: To anyone thinking about going{ Le Mans}can recommend it, superb, and a Brit win to boot:thumbs:

[brucy]

i got told that u might be able to get a few more hours out your hdd by putting it in the frezzer for a bit. Probably not a good idea if you've got any warranty on it, if not tho i guess it's worth a go if you fancy it.
(i had a ticking noise from mine and it was fcuked:cry:)

Andy

[Martin T]

Tell you what - if it is fooked - esp. if the motor's gone/on its way out, I'll save you £1200. Take the fooker out and put it in the freezer for a few hours. It MUST NOT get wet however, even from condensation. Plug it back in. save your stuff. throw it out the window or at a police car or sommat. Say thankyou Martin you're a genius:D

[Leon]

Originally posted by brucy
if u wanna try and save some of the data. Stick it as a slave hdd on another computer and see if you can open it through windows and copy and paste the stuff you want across, i hope that makes sense.

I recently lost 12gb of stuff when my hdd ****ed up :( :( :cry:

Andy

Just don't do this if you're trying to open an old HDD under XP.
I did that when my new PC was being built... we got everything off bar one file... and the HDD just packed up and died!

[david_t]

Thanks for the tips, I will wait till my lad comes home, and will give your ideas a whirl.I 'll post it up if anything works.