Hard drive dead?

GunJack

rmg1 wrote: »

Erm ..... no.
Can I do that from the Hirens disc?

boot into MiniXP, then My Computer > C: drive (usually), format as you would normally do in XP/Vista/7 etc, right-click on the drive and choose Format

MiniXP is just like a cut-down version of XP, great for stuff like this, copying files of a non-booting machine, etc.

If you can't format the drive, it's unlikely it'll function properly again....

poppellerant

rmg1 wrote: »

I've run the chkdsk option from the Hirens menu and that came up with quite a few bad sectors.

...

I've also run the WD diagnostics tool (it's a WD drive) and it came up as fail.The info it came up with gave red against reallocated sector count (with a value of29). Everything else seemed to pass.

I'd give up all hope on it - you can't repair bad sectors and the harddrive can only reallocate so many bad sectors.

It's not clear to me what you want from the harddrive, or if you just want to diagnose it. But if the harddrive is still under warranty, then you should contact WD support to arrange an RMA. Go here if you want to check the warranty status.

If you want to experiment, find yourself a bootable DOS CD and run SpinRite - this may buy the harddrive a few more hours of life.

rmg1

I'd given up hope on it anyway, just wondered if I was doing something dim when trying to reinstall windows. It's probably out of warranty as the laptop is a few years old. I'll check anyway.

Is the drive I linked to initially a good buy or can I get cheaper?

::edit::

Just checked and the drive out of warranty.

poppellerant

The drive you linked to is okay, but I'd opt for a 7,200rpm drive rather than a 5,400rpm one, for example this HGST 250GB Travelstar. The faster spin speed will reduce the seek times.

rmg1

Thanks for that, I'll order one on pay-day.

spud17

rmg1 wrote: »

Erm ..... no.
Can I do that from the Hirens disc?

If you're keen on learning, boot the Hirens disk, use mini-XP as per GunJack, and have a look around.

Reboot from Hirens, and go to the DOS option, again, have a look around.
It sounds as if your HD is dead/dying, you'll have a job to make it much worse.

Familiarity makes it easier the next time.

(Also, it impresses less techie folk when you boot up from a disk, whilst 'sorting' their machine. )

GunJack

spud17 wrote: »

(Also, it impresses less techie folk when you boot up from a disk, whilst 'sorting' their machine. )

:rotfl: :T :rotfl: :T :rotfl:

pure class spud

GunJack

spud17 wrote: »

If you're keen on learning, boot the Hirens disk, use mini-XP as per GunJack, and have a look around.

Reboot from Hirens, and go to the DOS option, again, have a look around.
It sounds as if your HD is dead/dying, you'll have a job to make it much worse.

Familiarity makes it easier the next time.

Aherm...now for the seroius bit... rmg1, spud's advice is spot-on... have a root round, there's some great tools on a Hiren's BCD.

For example, at the options selection screen (at initial boot) the Offline NT Password editor/removal tool is spot-on for removing passwords from user accounts (usually needed if the user has forgotten it and locked themselves out - 5 mins to sort)

Explore the HBCD Menu for the list of tools available in the MiniXP environment, there's some really useful stuff in there... I've grown rather fond of MiniTool's Partition Wizard, which, once you get used to it, works brilliantly.

As spud says, you're not going to do any worse damage to the hdd, so whilst awaiting the new hdd for that lappy, so take the opportunity to play with Hiren's, and also maybe do a Puppy Linux CD to try too

spud - we'll convince him to build the xboot USB yet

debitcardmayhem

GunJack wrote: »

Aherm...now for the seroius bit... rmg1, spud's advice is spot-on... have a root round, there's some great tools on a Hiren's BCD.

For example, at the options selection screen (at initial boot) the Offline NT Password editor/removal tool is spot-on for removing passwords from user accounts (usually needed if the user has forgotten it and locked themselves out - 5 mins to sort)

Explore the HBCD Menu for the list of tools available in the MiniXP environment, there's some really useful stuff in there... I've grown rather fond of MiniTool's Partition Wizard, which, once you get used to it, works brilliantly.

As spud says, you're not going to do any worse damage to the hdd, so whilst awaiting the new hdd for that lappy, so take the opportunity to play with Hiren's, and also maybe do a Puppy Linux CD to try too

spud - we'll convince him to build the xboot USB yet

I still live girls

spud17

And Lo, the 3 musketeers were reformed. :beer:

Listening to music via foobar 2000, and Blind Boys Of Alabama are now singing 'Silent Night'